Abstract
Rhesus monkeys received intravenous injections of ethanol during daily sessions contingent on their presses on an available lever. Under the standard conditions, when each response on the lever during a 3-h period each day resulted in an i.v. injection of 0.1 g/kg ethanol, the monkeys made between 30 and 50 responses/session and developed blood ethanol levels of approximately 400 mg%. Under this and other conditions of response-contingent delivery of ethanol, a negatively accelerated pattern of self-injection within sessions was demonstrated. Variations in the dose per injection (0.05–0.2 g/kg/injection) resulted in changes in the rate of lever-pressing; the number of self-injections was inversely related to dose. Ethanol intake increased only slightly with increased dose per injection. Noncontingent administration of various doses of i.v. ethanol immediately prior to a daily session decreased the number of responses; the total amount of ethanol administered (contingent plus noncontingent), however, remained constant over a pretreatment dose range of 1 to 3 g/kg. When access time to ethanol was increased from 3 to 6 h/day, the total amount of ethanol taken increased slightly. However, the blood ethanol levels at the end of a 6-h session closely approximated those obtained following 3-h sessions, indicating that during the last 3–4 h of the 6-h sessions, the rate of ethanol intake closely matched the rate of ethanol elimination.
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Karoly, A.J., Winger, G., Ikomi, F. et al. The reinforcing property of ethanol in the rhesus monkey. Psychopharmacology 58, 19–25 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00426785
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00426785