Fig. 1

Experimental design schematic representation. Female and male rats were submitted to daily sessions of ethanol vapor inhalation for 14 h (7 p.m. to 9 a.m.) followed by a 10-h withdrawal (no ethanol vapor inhalation) to evaluate chronic ethanol vapor exposure effects on cardiovascular parameters. Blood samples (100 μl) were collected from the tip of the rat tail every week. Twenty-four hours after the last ethanol vapor exposure, we subjected all experimental groups to surgical preparation. Two days later, we performed cardiovascular measurements during basal and stress conditions (for details, see the description of “Experimental protocols” in the text)