The current study was undertaken to test if the α4 GABAAR subunit is required for the reinforcing effects of ethanol as measured by instrumental responding; specifically, is the ability of ethanol to maintain lever-press responding dependent upon the α4 GABAAR subunit? Using viral-mediated RNAi (Rewal et al. 2009), we show that reduction of the expression of the α4 GABAAR subunit in the NAc shell reduces responding for ethanol, without altering the initial motivation to perform the lever-press response, and without producing non-selective reductions in reinforcement processes or motor performance.
