Аннотация:
Background. Social conditions are one of the factors influencing behavior in social animals and belong to a separate class of motives that determine alcohol consumption in humans. Earlier the influence of the factor of individual ethanol consumption on rats living with of non-alcoholic cage mates was shown. Unlike the conditions when several individuals of the group underwent forced alcoholization, individual consumption did not lead to an increase in the formation of ethanol preference.
Aim: to analyze the social interactions in groups where only one rat drank ethanol solution.
Methods. 30 Wistar male rats were kept in groups of three individuals. In the experimental groups, only one rat received 15% ethanol solution in the intermittent schedule, while other of rats received water. Video registration was performed immediately after extraction from the cells of the separators, which provided individual compartments for drinking, with followed automatic recognition of the each rat coordinates . Social interactions were verified manually in the analysis process of the video.
Results. A distancing of the alcoholized rats from their cage mates was found in the first two weeks of alcoholization, without reducing the number of social interactions with it. In the subsequent period, there was reverse rapprochement alcogoliszed rats with cage mates, accompanied by an increase in communication in relation to him and the lack of growth of his aggressive acts.
Conclusion. We assume that sober environment has the protective effect on the formation of alcohol preferences in individually alcoholized individuals. It is assumed that the level of social interactions supported by "sober neighbors" stops the development of anxiety, which may be basis for the formation of addiction.
Ключевые слова:
alcohol, addiction, rats, animal model, social factors, conformity.