Stress enhances the development of tolerance to the hypothermic effect of ethanol.

Handling procedures used for body temperature measurement in rats, such as repeated rectal probing during restraint, raise body temperature in a manner similar to other stressors. Thus, the common use of this procedure to monitor temperature may actually obscure the results of experiments measuring the acute and chronic effects of alcohol. In the present experiment, temperature was continuously monitored with implanted biotelemetric sensors, thus eliminating the need for repeated stressful handling. Handling stress was found to interact with the effects of ethanol intoxication to augment the initial hypothermic effect of ethanol. Moreover, the rate and extent of tolerance development to ethanol-induced hypothermia was enhanced.