The major findings of this study are that binge-like alcohol drinking by P rats produced comparatively small changes (1.1- to 1.2- fold) in gene expression in the ACB-shell and CeA, resulted in more genes having higher than lower expression levels (1.5- to 3.6- fold), and produced region-dependent changes in gene expression, some of which included changes in transcription, synaptic function and neuronal plasticity (Table 2; Figs. 2 and 3; Supplemental Tables A and B). The overall results support part of our hypothesis that region-dependent changes occur with ethanol drinking. However, the results do not indicate that time-dependent changes occurred in the ACB-shell.
