Browsing by Subject "blood alcohol concentration"

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    Alcohol Drinking and Blood Alcohol Concentration Revisited
    (Wiley, 2017) Dilley, Julian E.; Nicholson, Emily; Fischer, Stephen M.; Zimmer, Robin; Froehlich, Janice C.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Background It is widely assumed that the amount of alcohol in the blood reflects the amount of alcohol consumed. However, several factors in addition to amount of alcohol consumed can influence blood alcohol concentration (BAC). This study examines the effect of alcohol dose, concentration, and volume on BAC in rats with a high-alcohol-drinking (HAD) phenotype. Methods Study 1 examined the relationship between the amount of alcohol consumed and BAC. Alcohol-naïve, male, HAD rats (N = 7) were given access to alcohol for 2 h/d for 9 consecutive days with food and water ad libitum. Alcohol intake and BAC were measured at 30, 60, and 90 minutes after onset of access. Study 2 examined the effects of altering alcohol dose, concentration, and volume on BAC (as measured by area under the curve). Alcohol-naïve, male, HAD rats (N = 39) were infused, via an intragastric cannulus, with 1.16, 2.44, or 3.38 g alcohol/kg body weight (BW), produced by varying alcohol volume while holding concentration constant or by holding volume constant while varying concentration. Other rats were infused with 10, 15, or 20% v/v alcohol solutions while holding dose constant. Results BAC was more strongly correlated with the ratio of alcohol intake (g/kg BW) to total fluid intake (mls) (R = 0.85 to 0.97, p < 0.05 to p < 0.001) than it was with the amount of alcohol consumed (g/kg BW) (R = 0.70 to 0.81, p < 0.05). No effect of alcohol dose was seen during the first hour following the onset of an alcohol infusion regardless of whether dose was achieved by altering alcohol volume or concentration. After 1 hour, higher alcohol doses were predictive of greater BACs. Conclusions The fact that a 3-fold difference in alcohol dose did not result in significant differences in BACs during the first 30 minutes after ingestion of alcohol has potentially important implications for interpretation of studies that measure alcohol-sensitive end points during this time.
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    Scheduled access alcohol drinking by alcohol-preferring (P) and high-alcohol-drinking (HAD) rats: modeling adolescent and adult binge-like drinking
    (Elsevier B.V., 2014-05) Bell, Richard L.; Rodd, Zachary A.; Engleman, Eric A.; Toalston, Jamie E.; McBride, William J.; Department of Psychiatry, IU School of Medicine
    Binge alcohol drinking continues to be a public health concern among today’s youth and young adults. Moreover, an early onset of alcohol use, which usually takes the form of binge drinking, is associated with a greater risk for developing alcohol use disorders. Given this, it is important to examine this behavior in rat models of alcohol abuse and dependence. Toward that end, the objective of this article is to review findings on binge-like drinking by selectively bred alcohol-preferring (P) and high-alcohol-drinking (HAD) lines of rats. As reviewed elsewhere in this special issue, the P line meets all, and the HAD line meets most, of the proposed criteria for an animal model of alcoholism. One model of binge drinking is scheduled ethanol access during the dark cycle, which has been used by our laboratory for over 20 years. Our laboratory has also adopted a protocol involving the concurrent presentation of multiple ethanol concentrations. When this protocol is combined with limited access, ethanol intake is maximized yielding blood ethanol levels (BELs) in excess, sometimes greatly in excess, of 80 mg%. By extending these procedures to include multiple scheduled ethanol access sessions during the dark cycle for 5 consecutive days/week, P and HAD rats consume in 3 or 4 h as much as, if not more than, the amount usually consumed in a 24-h period. Under certain conditions, using the multiple scheduled access procedure, BELs exceeding 200 mg% can be achieved on a daily basis. An overview of findings from studies with other selectively bred, inbred, and outbred rats places these findings in the context of the existing literature. Overall, the findings support the use of P and HAD rats as animal models to study binge-like alcohol drinking and reveal that scheduled access procedures will significantly increase ethanol intake by other rat lines and strains as well.