LPS induces a transient sickness behavior, and we estimated the severity of this sickness by changes in body weight and water intake (Fig. 1). We asked if the severity of this sickness behavior is related to later changes in alcohol intake. We calculated the correlation between severity of sickness and ethanol intake for all mice used in this study. The severity of sickness was calculated as an area under the curve for daily monitoring of body weight after the first injection of LPS. Body weight the day before LPS injection was taken as 100%, and body weight for each of the next seven days was expressed as a percentage of the initial body weight. This parameter reflects not only the peak severity of sickness but also the course of recovery. Ethanol intake was calculated as an area under the curve for ethanol intake from 3% of ethanol solution up to 18% of ethanol (using amount of ethanol consumed, g/kg/d). No correlations between these parameters were found (Fig. 11), which suggests that increased ethanol consumption produced by LPS is not a consequence of the sickness response.
