“They not only drink alcohol, they prefer it over water,”
Allison Anacker, a neuroscience graduate student at Oregon
Health & Science University told The Oregonian. Anacker, working
under behavioral neuroscience professor Andrey Ryabinin, was
looking for a model organism to study some humans’ troubled
relationship with alcohol. Mice and rats fail in this role–it’s
unusual to find ones that want even a sip of the stuff. In a
study published in Addiction Biology last month, Ryabinin’s team
records the drunken misadventures of prairie voles. After
chugging their preferred 6 percent alcohol drink (about the
equivalent of beer), some thirsty voles shoved off parental
responsibilities and even walked out on their mates. Though some
drank responsibility, others drank to excess, stumbling away
from the bar/spiked water bottle. The study suggests that like
humans, the voles also make drinking buddies, seemingly
encouraging each other to have another. When caged together, the
voles appear to match one another drink for