Adolescent male P (alcohol preferring) rats were allowed to binge drink as described previously (McBride et al., 2014). Gene expression changes have been reported in 3 regions of these same rats: accumbens shell, central core of the amygdala (McBride et al., 2014) and dorsal raphe (McClintick et al. 2015). Briefly, starting at 28 days of age, 11 male P rats were given ad libitum access to food and water, and access to ethanol (15 and 30% ethanol solutions concurrently) in 3 × 1 h sessions per day for 5 consecutive days/week, while 10 control animals were treated identically except without access to ethanol. This free-choice multiple-scheduled-access to ethanol procedure (Bell et al., 2014, Bell et al., 2011) resulted in average daily ethanol intakes of approximately 8 g/kg/day, with intakes of 2–3 g/kg for each of the 3 daily 1 h sessions (McBride et al., 2014). These levels of intake lead to BAC of 100 mg% (Bell et al., 2011), and therefore meet the criterion for binge-drinking put forth by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA, 2004). The
