Elsevier

Alcohol

Volume 16, Issue 1, July 1998, Pages 13-18
Alcohol

Articles
Altered Ambient Temperature and Ethanol-Induced Conditioned Place Preference in Mice

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0741-8329(97)00168-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous studies with rats exposed to altered ambient temperature (Ta) or with mice selectively bred for their thermal response to ethanol have shown that a reduced hypothermic response is correlated with decreased place aversion and greater place preference, respectively. The present experiment was designed to test whether alterations in Ta would alter ethanol’s ability to produce conditioned place preference in genetically heterogeneous mice. Three groups of mice underwent a differential conditioning procedure that paired one distinctive floor texture with ethanol (2.25 g/kg, IP) and a different floor texture with saline. During conditioning, each group was exposed to a different Ta: cold (10°C), normal (21°C), or warm (34°C). Each group was further divided and subgroups were tested for preference at either the conditioning temperature or a different temperature. Consistent with previous findings, mice conditioned and tested at normal Ta developed a conditioned preference for the ethanol-paired floor. In contrast, mice exposed to a warm or cold Ta during conditioning or testing failed to show place conditioning. Although exposure to either warm or cold Ta interfered with place conditioning, only the warm Ta had an effect on hypothermia. These findings suggest that altered Ta produced stimuli that may have interfered with the association between floor cues and ethanol during conditioning or interfered with expression of this association during testing.

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Subjects

The subjects were 202 naive male mice that originated from HS/Ibg stock, an eight-way cross of inbred strains (19). These mice were obtained from the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Mice were housed in groups of two to four in polycarbonate cages (27.9 × 9.5 × 12.7 cm) with cob bedding. They weighed an average of 27.4 ± 0.2 g on the habituation day and showed a small increase in weight (0.5 ± 0.1 g) over the 10-day experiment. The colony room was maintained at 22 ± 1°C and all

Results

Data from six mice were excluded from analyses of both conditioning and test sessions due to procedural errors or injection injuries that occurred during conditioning trials. Data from an additional three mice were excluded from analyses of test sessions only for similar reasons. Final group sizes are indicated in the text or figure captions. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the alpha level set at 0.05.

Discussion

Ethanol-induced conditioned place preference was seen only in mice conditioned and tested at normal Ta. Subjects exposed to the low or high Ta during either training or testing did not exhibit a conditioned place preference or aversion, suggesting that alterations in Ta interfered with the learning or expression of ethanol-induced place conditioning. These results are only partially consistent with predictions derived from rat studies in which Ta was manipulated 9, 12, 13. Although exposure to

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by NIAAA grants AA07702 and AA07468. Thanks are extended to Nancy Bormann, Julia Chester, and Carly Henderson for their comments and assistance.

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