¹Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia

Background: Binge drinking is the strongest predictor of the future development of alcohol use disorder and a major socioeconomic burden. Despite much research into the neural underpinnings of alcohol use, how biological sex impacts this is not well understood, and lags behind due to decades of research exclusively conducted in male subjects.

Aims & Objectives: To help close the gender knowledge gap, we aimed to determine how brain activity changes in male and female mice in response to anticipation and consumption of alcohol.

Method: We mapped cFos expression (as a proxy for neuronal activation) in alcohol naïve, alcohol-anticipating and binge drinking mice of both sexes to understand how both the drive for alcohol and alcohol consumption activate the brain. We next used chemogenetics (DREADDs) to probe the functional role of the basolateral amygdala (BLA).

Results: Interregional correlation of activation across brain regions highlighted basal differences in brain networks of male and female mice, that were differently activated by anticipation, and consumption of alcohol. Analysis of specific brain regions highlighted the BLA as a region of interest, with a sex-specific increase in neuronal activation observed following alcohol in female mice. Specific inhibition of the BLA reduced binge drinking in female mice, however a trend towards reduction was also observed in male mice.

Discussion & Conclusions: Future research is ongoing to elucidate specific cell population(s) within, or a pathway from, the BLA activated by alcohol that may drive binge drinking specifically in female mice.