ABSTRACT
The dopamine systems of brain have been postulated to be involved in the control of various behavioural and physiological processes (Jenner et al., 1978). Since withdrawal of animals or man from chronic treatment with ethanol results in the appearance of withdrawal symptoms (Gross et al., 1974; Goldstein, 1975; Ritzmann and Tabakoff, 1976) (e.g. temperature aberrations and tremor), which may reflect a malfunction of the dopamine systems of brain, and since tolerance develops to several effects of ethanol which are thought to be mediated through activity of dopamine neurons (Hunt and Overstreet, 1977; Tabakoff et al., 1978), we examined various parameters of dopaminergic function in animals chronically treated with and withdrawn from ethanol. We reasoned that by monitoring the time course of the neurochemical changes, we could discern whether the change was related to the overt manifestations of tolerance or of physical dependence (i.e., withdrawal symptoms), since these phenomena follow different time courses of disappearance after ethanol withdrawal (Ritzmann and Tabakoff, 1976).
