Due in part to their rich
behavioral repertoire rats have
been widely used in
behavioral studies of drug a
buse-related traits for decades. However, the mouse
became the model of choice for researchers exploring the genetic underpinnings of addiction after the first mouse study was pu
blished demonstrating the capa
bility of engineering the mouse genome through em
bryonic stem cell technology. The sequencing of the mouse genome and more recent re-sequencing of numerous in
bred mouse strains have further cemented the status of mice as the premier mammalian organism for genetic studies. As a result, many of the
behavioral paradigms initially developed and optimized for rats have
been adapted to mice. However, numerous complex and interesting drug a
buse-related
behaviors that can
be studied in rats are very difficult or impossi
ble to adapt for use in mice, impeding the genetic dissection of those traits. Now, technological advances have removed many of the historical limitations of genetic studies in rats. For instance, the rat genome has
been sequenced and many in
bred rat strains are now
being re-sequenced and out
bred rat stocks are
being used to fine-map QTLs. In addition, it is now possi
ble to create 鈥渒nockout鈥?rats using zinc finger nucleases (ZFN), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and related techniques. Thus, rats can now
be used to perform quantitative genetic studies of sophisticated
behaviors that have
been difficult or impossi
ble to study in mice.
This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 鈥楴IDA 40th Anniversary Issue鈥?