FIGURE 2.

Intra-BLA α-m5HT has modest effects on consumption related behaviors during self-administration of a sweetened ethanol solution. (A) Exemplar drinking behaviors expressed by a single animal during self-administration sessions recorded following microinjection of the indicated doses. Vertical deflections indicate continuous licking (no pause greater than 20 s) of a sipper tube containing 2% sucrose/10% ethanol. Horizontal deflections show periods with no drinking. (B) The total number of sipper tube licks during the 20 min self administration period was not altered by microinjection of α-m5HT. There was no significant difference between pre-surgical baseline and any dose (P > 0.05, F = 0.4, repeated measures ANOVA). (C) Intra-BLA microinjection of α-m5HT did not alter the total number of lick bouts, defined as continuous licking of the sipper tube without a break greater than 20 s. There was no significant difference between pre-surgical baseline and any dose of α-m5HT (P > 0.05, F = 0.5, repeated measures ANOVA). (D) The mean number of licks per bout was not significantly altered by intra-BLA α-m5HT (P > 0.05, F = 1.0, repeated measures ANOVA). (E) Microinjection of 2 μg α-m5HT significantly decreased (P < 0.05, F = 4.9, repeated measures) the amount of time animals spent licking (“Lick time”) relative to both the pre-surgery baseline and the 0.2 μg dose. ^*P < 0.05 compared to pre-surgery baseline, ^@P < 0.05 compared to 0.2 μg dose, Neuman–Keuls multiple comparison post-test. (F) The time animals spent licking the sipper tube during the 20 min access period was stable across the entire time-frame of the microinjection experiments. There were no significant effects of “week” across the experiment (repeated measures ANOVA). The doses delivered during experimental days of these weeks are indicated in brackets. Additional drinking parameters measured during non-experimental days are found in Table 2.