Among the other strengths of the two-bottle preference drinking test is the fact that it is very easy to implement. We routinely have high school students performing this test within 2 weeks of their entering our laboratories for summer research experiences. It is also possible to achieve very high throughput when collecting data, which is an enormous advantage for complex genetics studies. As we have mentioned above, we have nearly 60 years of rat data, and 50 of mouse data. The existence of numerous selectively bred lines has allowed us to achieve convergent validity for many correlates of preference drinking. The trait has a relatively high heritability compared to other behaviors, which also has facilitated genetic studies, and some QTLs have been found reliably across time and laboratories.
