Chunk #32 — 4. Selectively bred high alcohol-consuming rat lines and their phenotypic characteristics — 4.4. Sardinian alcohol-preferring and alcohol-nonpreferring rats
The Sardinian alcohol-preferring, sP, and alcohol-nonpreferring, sNP, rats were developed from a Wistar foundation stock at the University of Cagliari, Italy (Colombo et al., 2006). As an animal model of alcoholism, sP rats readily consume appreciable levels of ethanol (>5.0 g/kg/day ethanol), whereas sNP rats consume <1.0 g/kg/day ethanol (Colombo et al., 2006). The sP rat will operantly self-administer ethanol, indicating ethanol serves as a reinforcer, and they are willing to work for access to ethanol (Colombo et al., 2006; Vacca et al., 2002b). Furthermore, sP rats achieve pharmacologically relevant BACs (> 50 mg%) during free-choice ethanol drinking (Colombo et al., 2006) and display a modest ADE as well (Agabio et al., 2000; Serra et al., 2003). Research on anxiety-like behavior suggests sP rats are innately more anxious than sNP rats, and their higher ethanol intake may be related to ethanol’s anxiolytic effects (Colombo et al., 1995; Roman and Colombo, 2009). Additionally, sP, but not sNP, rats find ethanol rewarding as indicated by locomotor activation after limited free-choice access to ethanol (Colombo et al., 1998b) and administration of low doses
