Developmental investigations of the rewarding properties of ethanol have proved challenging, in part because of difficulties in establishing CPP for ethanol in rats, with mice, in contrast, demonstrating reliable ethanol-induced CPP (see Green & Grahame, 2008 for references and review). Rats, however, typically show ethanol-induced conditioned place aversion (CPA), with ethanol CPP being reported in animals following prior exposure to ethanol (see Fidler et al., 2004 for references). The frequent emergence of ethanol-induced CPA (rather than CPP) in ethanol-naïve adult rats is likely to be related to enhanced sensitivity of adult rats to aversive postabsorptive effects of ethanol (Fidler et al., 2004). Using other strategies for assessment of ethanol reward, however, a couple of recent reports have provided some initial evidence that adolescent rats may find ethanol to be more reinforcing than adults. In work examining second-order conditioning, experimental (paired) rats received intragastric infusions of ethanol (the unconditioned stimulus [US]) paired with intra-oral infusions of sucrose (CS1) during phase 1, whereas unpaired control animals were exposed to the sucrose CS1 four hours prior to administration of the ethanol US (Pautassi
