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Figure 1 | Genome Biology

Figure 1

From: Identifying candidate drivers of alcohol dependence-induced excessive drinking by assembly and interrogation of brain-specific regulatory networks

Figure 1

Escalation of alcohol intake induced by chronic, intermittent alcohol vapor exposure in rats. (A) Responding for alcohol by the animals used for the microarray dataset in the gene network analysis. A total of 96 gene expression profiles from eight brain regions (mPFC, BLA, dorsolateral and ventrolateral BNST, CeA, core and shell of NAc, VTA) from four rats per group in this experiment were used to reconstruct the transcriptional regulatory network, or transcriptional-interactome. White bars show the average operant responding for ethanol over the last 11 self-administration sessions prior to induction of dependence (Baseline) for both the rats exposed to alcohol vapor to induce dependence and non-dependent rats exposed to air in the same apparatus for control. Operant responding during acute withdrawal after 4-week exposure to chronic, intermittent alcohol vapor (or air for control) is shown by the right hand bars: black bar = dependent rats and grey bar = non-dependent rats. The average number of presses for ethanol in the dependent group during acute withdrawal was significantly increased over the non-dependent group and over the baseline response level of the same rats; conversely, in animals exposed to air instead of alcohol vapors for control, the average number of presses was unchanged from their baseline. *P <0.01 from the other three groups. (B) Responding from all the rats in the study (n = 10) including the four per group used for the microarray profiling and the others that were used for RT-PCR validation (Y-axis scale as in A); *P <0.01 from the other three groups. Rats were sacrificed during protracted abstinence (3 weeks after the last self-administration session and vapor exposure).

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