Besides the above unpublished study, that this is an area with intriguing possibilities for alcohol research is based almost entirely on the biological data implicating vasopressin and oxytocin. In the 1980’s, vasopressin was shown to restore normal ethanol drinking in Brattleboro rats genetically lacking vasopressin (Rigter and Crabbe, 1982). More recently, mice with a targeted disruption of the Avp1r gene showed increased alcohol consumption compared to wild type (Sanbe et al., 2008). The vasopressin 1A receptor has also been implicated in partially mediating some of the differences in maternal behavior transmitted epigenetically by the group of Michael Meaney and collaborators (Champagne et al., 2003). Other social isolation-related behaviors have been studied extensively in rats and mice, and there is some evidence for a role for vasopressin as well. For example, brain-regional receptor densities for V1aR, oxytocin, and CRF receptors predict the response of rats to isolation housing, specifically the potentiation of the startle reflex induced by isolation (Nair et al., 2005). Manipulations of the pre and postnatal environment using cross fostering and /or ova transplant designs could be applied to
