Because an animal must be trained to lever press for ethanol, operant testing procedures cannot typically be used to assess how well a pharmacotherapy can prevent the acquisition of ethanol-associated responding. Similar to home cage drinking procedures, operant procedures can be used to examine how well a compound reduces the maintenance of responding for alcohol, as well as relapse-like behavior (i.e., an ADE). Because the animal must lever press for alcohol access, operant procedures also allow a researcher to evaluate how a given compound alters responding in the absence of an ethanol reward (i.e., seeking or craving behavior), as is typical during extinction and Pavlovian Spontaneous Recovery. As there are cues unique to the operant testing environment that are not present in the home cage, operant testing offers the distinct advantage of investigating cue-induced responding (i.e., seeking or craving behavior in the absence of ethanol reinforcement) and how well a given pharmacotherapy prevents this behavior.
