Modeling Alcohol Consumption in Rodents Using Two-Bottle Choice Home Cage Drinking and Microstructural Analysis

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Science
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Two-bottle choice home cage drinking is a standard method for studying rodent ethanol consumption.
• Traditional methods offer limited data resolution, typically measured by daily bottle weight changes.
• Recent advancements include home cage lick detection systems for higher-resolution drinking data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review standard and lickometer-equipped two-bottle choice home cage drinking procedures.
• To introduce methods for adapting the open-source LIQ HD system for use in rats.
• To enable high-resolution analysis of ethanol consumption patterns in rats.

Main Methods:

• Review of established two-bottle choice home cage drinking protocols.
• Adaptation of the LIQ HD system for rat housing, including hardware modifications and a redesigned bottle holder.
• Parallel data acquisition of drinking patterns and intake levels in multiple rats.

Main Results:

• Successful adaptation of the LIQ HD system for use with rats.
• Demonstration of parallel, high-resolution data collection on ethanol intake patterns.
• Increased data resolution compared to traditional daily bottle weight measurements.

Conclusions:

• The adapted LIQ HD system provides a cost-effective method for high-resolution ethanol consumption analysis in rats.
• Researchers can now investigate neurobiological mechanisms of alcohol drinking with enhanced data granularity.
• This approach offers flexibility for studying drinking patterns alongside pharmacological and neuronal manipulations.