Daily ethanol intakes (mean ± S.E.M.) of the CA group averaged 9.6 ± 0.9 g/kg/day across the 8 weeks, whereas daily ethanol intakes of the MSA group averaged 6.4 ± 0.3 g/kg/day, with hourly intakes ranging between 1.7 and 2.7 g/kg (Fig. 1, upper panel). Overall, the distributions of drinking scores for the two groups did not overlap (Fig. 1, lower panel: the boxplot depicts the means, interquartile ranges, and the most extreme scores). In the present study, the average daily intakes of the CA group and average hourly intakes of the MSA are higher than previously reported (Bell et al., 2006a), despite the fact that the MSA group had access to only three 1-hr sessions compared with four 1-hr access sessions in the Bell et al. (2006a) study. These differences may have been due to the use of selectively bred P rats in the present study versus inbred P rats used in the previous study and/or the use of male P rats in the present study versus the use of female inbred P rats in the previous study.
