Pharmacological validation of a new animal model of alcoholism

A new animal model of alcoholism has been developed. Rats derived from this model show certain characteristics: (i) they have an incentive demand to c onsume alcohol, (ii) they exhibit relapse-like drinking even after a very l ong time of abstinence, (iii) they show tolerance to alcohol and have mild signs of physical withdrawal during the onset of abstinence, and (iv) durin g abstinence they also exhibit a psychological withdrawal syndrome consisti ng of enhanced anxiety-related behaviour and hyperreactivity to stressful s ituations. Anti-craving drugs such as acamprosate and naltrexone which proved to be ef fective in human alcoholics to prevent relapse were also effective in our a nimal model. Thus, both compounds suppressed the alcohol deprivation effect which is used as a measure for craving and relapse. It is concluded that t his pharmacological validation of our model demonstrates the predictive val ue of our model and enables us to further characterize putative anti-cravin g drugs and neurobiological mechanisms of addictive behaviour.