EFFECT OF ETHANOL ON SUSTAINED ATTENTION IN RATS

Acute exposure to ethanol produces deficits in sustained attention in humans, but these attentional deficits have not been modeled in animal s. In this study, an operant task was used to investigate the effects of low and moderate doses of ethanol on sustained attention in rats. P erformance on a two-choice reaction time task over a l-h session was a ssessed immediately following administration of ethanol (0.0, 0.5, 0.7 5, 1.0 and 1.5 g/kg IP). Each rat was required to respond to a light s timulus of variable duration (20, 100, and 500 ms) occurring at one of two locations, Under control and saline conditions, increases in stim ulus length systematically increased choice accuracy and decreased rea ction time. Ethanol produced a dose-dependent decrease in choice accur acy that interacted with time, with an initial impairment that was sti mulus length-dependent followed by a general vigilance decrement. The data demonstrate that ethanol impaired the ability of rats to direct a nd sustain attention to brief, infrequent stimuli, and provide a model for further investigations into the underlying neurobiological mechan isms for ethanol-induced attentional deficits.