Fig. 2.
Chronic ethanol exposure elicits no change in ACTH levels but reduces the ACTH and steroid responses to ethanol challenge. Groups of rats administered control (CD) or ethanol (CE) diet for 2 weeks received a challenge injection of saline (+ S) or ethanol (+ E) (2 g/kg, i.p.), tissue was collected 60 min post-ethanol administration and serum (a) ACTH and (b) progesterone (Prog), as well as (c) cerebral cortical 3α,5α-THP were measured. *p < 0.001 and **p < 0.05 compared to CD + S, and #p < 0.01 compared to CD + E (anova followed by Newman–Keuls test), n = 5–13 in duplicate.