title: Effects of acute ethanol on indices of cognitive-behavioral performance in rats.
abstract: The present experiment examined the effects of ethanol on several complex operant behaviors in rats. Tasks included: temporal response differentiation (TRD) to assess timing behavior; differential reinforcement of low response rates (DRL) to assess timing and response inhibition; incremental repeated acquisition (IRA) to assess learning; conditioned position responding (CPR) to assess auditory, visual, and position discrimination; and progressive ratio (PR) to assess motivation. Ethanol (0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0 g/kg via orogastric gavage) reduced accuracy and/or percent task completed for the TRD, DRL, and CPR tasks. For CPR, this reduction was accompanied by a reduction in response rates. Ethanol also reduced response rates on the PR task. There were no effects of ethanol on IRA performance. These data suggest that ethanol can selectively impair performance on cognitive-behavioral tasks and that these effects can occur at doses that do not affect the subjects' ability to respond.
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurotoxicology, National Center for Toxicological Research, FDA, Jefferson, AR 72079, USA. epopke@nctr.fda.gov
authors.forename: E J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Popke
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Paule
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000187:drug effects; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000187:drug effects; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D007858:Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology