Importantly, some of our most recent work has examined some of the sex-related differences that may accompany the age-related differences in voluntary ethanol consumption under limited access conditions. In the most common paradigm we employ in our experiments, rats are given daily 30 minutes access to sweetened ethanol solutions using sucrose or saccharin. Rats are initially placed in a holding cage for 30–60 minutes to allow them to acclimate to the behavioral testing room and subsequently given access to ethanol and water for 30 minutes in rats that are neither food, nor water deprived. We have observed interesting sex and age-related differences in voluntary ethanol consumption under these limited access conditions. As described recently, adolescent male rats consume significantly more ethanol than adult male rats at higher sweetened ethanol concentrations (10% and 20% v/v ethanol) (Maldonado et al., 2008b). In contrast, adult female rats consume significantly more ethanol than adolescent female rats at lower sweetened ethanol concentrations (5% and 10%). Consistent with other work, we have observed increased voluntary sweetened ethanol intake in females as compared to males, when voluntary
