Early alcohol use is highly associated with more severe alcohol dependency as an adult (Grant and Dawson, 1997) and mesolimbic DA mediate the rewarding properties of alcohol in adult rodents (Engleman et al., 2000; Ericson, Blomqvist, Engel and Soderpalm, 1998; Gonzales, Job and Doyon, 2004; Katner and Weiss, 2001; Weiss, Lorang, Bloom and Koob, 1993; Weiss et al., 1996). Given these data, it was hypothesized that adult rats pretreated with ethanol during adolescence would have different basal DA concentrations than saline-treated controls. Adolescent rats were injected daily from PND 30–50 with either 0.75 g/kg/ip ethanol or saline followed by an ethanol-abstinent period from PND 51–65. Changes in extracellular DA levels in the NAcc were quantified on PND 70. Extracellular DA levels were greater in rats chronically treated with ethanol during adolescence in comparison to saline-exposed controls (Figure 5; Badanich, Maldonado and Kirstein, 2007). These data support similar reports in the adult literature (Weiss et al., 1996); however, a recent adolescent alcohol report (Sahr, Thielen, Lumeng, Li and McBride, 2004) suggested there were no differences in DA for rats selectively bred
