Mice don’t like to booze. That’s a problem, since it means that it’s hard to use them to study alcohol dependence. But maybe not a problem for much longer, since researchers were describing today how they managed to persuade mice to properly sloshed. The answer? Given them the liquour when the lights go down.
John Crabbe of the Portland Alcohol Research Center has been doing that for a few years now, and says that mice given ethanol a few hours after the lights in the lab go out will drink far more than normal. It makes sense, since this is the time when mice normally feed. Crabbe’s mice will drink enough for them to get intoxicated, something that mice normally avoid. If they could talk, says Crabbe, they would be slurring their words.
Once he discovered how to get the mice drunk, Crabbe pulled out those that developed the highest blood alcohol levels and bred them together. After five generations they are now prepared to drink enough to reach double the level of blood alcohol level of their forebears. Crabbe is going to keep on going, and will eventually make his mice available to alcohol researchers.
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