Effects of chronic intermittent ethanol on Pavlovian conditioned approach to alcohol cues

Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) represent one of the foremost public health concerns in the United States in which alcohol-associated cues can attract excessive attention and contribute to relapse. This attentional bias (AB) to alcohol cues has been widely documented but the neurobiology remains poorly understood. In rats, we used Pavlovian conditioning to pair a light cue with an alcoholic or non-alcoholic reward and assessed AB through Pavlovian conditioned responses (CRs) to reward-predictive cues. Rats were exposed to chronic intermittent ethanol (CIE) prior to Pavlovian conditioning to test whether CIE increases alcohol AB. We also administered naltrexone (NTX), a drug used to treat AUDs, to see its effects on CRs. Our results suggest that rats exhibit reduced CRs to alcoholic versus non-alcoholic rewards. Moreover, CIE and NTX had minimal effect in changing alcohol AB. These findings may provide a framework for future experimentation on neural pathways and processes involved in alcohol AB.Bachelor of Scienc