The unique characteristics of inbred mouse strains for dissecting environmental from genetic influences were first exploited by Gerald McClearn and David Rodgers in 1959 when they showed that 5 inbred mouse strains differed in alcohol preference (McClearn and Rodgers 1959). This paper will reveal that Gerald McClearn posed many of the most important questions regarding the control of drinking in mice many years ago. As the Human Genome Project spurred the development of tools allowing the rapid mapping of genes that influence quantitative traits (QTLs), and molecular biological techniques allowed specific genes to be manipulated for over or under expression starting in the late 1980s, mice began their inexorable ascendance as the species of choice for attacking many questions in neuro-science, including the neuroscience of the addictions.
