Nicotine and ethanol are two of the most commonly used drugs in society and are often co-abused. Despite this common use, there is little information known about the combined interactions of nicotine and ethanol in the brain. Therefore, this current study analyzed the combined actions of nicotine and ethanol in the brain and how this use effects working and long-term memory in the presence of an appetitive versus aversive stimulus. Two commonly used measures of working and long-term memory in rodents are the radial arm maze (RAM) and passive avoidance. Rats were trained on the radial arm maze for 2 weeks to ensure their learning of the maze. Half of the arms were baited in the 8-arm RAM to serve as the appetitive stimulus. A working memory error was counted if the rat entered an arm that was already entered during that trial. Meanwhile, long-term memory errors were counted if the rat entered an arm that was not baited. The passive avoidance test occurred in a 3-compartment conditioning chamber in which one side was paired with a shock (aversive stimulus) and the amount of time the rats avoided the shock-paired chamber in the following session was recorded to test for long-term memory. The control group consisted of an injection of saline + saline. Meanwhile the experimental groups consisted of saline + nicotine, saline + ethanol, and nicotine + ethanol in a within-subject experimental design to account for any possible differences in the subjects. Both drugs act on the meso-dopaminergic system and nicotine is predicted to reduce the alcohol- induced memory impairments that occur during co-use. If nicotine can reduce the memory impairments caused from alcohol use through interactions in the reward system, then memory performance in the RAM will be enhanced and latency to enter the shock-paired chamber will be longer.