A paradigm for ethanol consumption in head-fixed mice during prefrontal cortical two-photon calcium imaging

Neuropharmacology. 2023 Dec 4:109800. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2023.109800. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a hub for cognitive behaviors and is a key target for neuroadaptations in alcohol use disorders. Recent advances in genetically encoded sensors and functional microscopy allow multimodal in-vivo PFC activity recordings at subcellular and cellular scales. While these methods could enable a deeper understanding of the relationship between alcohol and PFC function/dysfunction, they typically require animals to be head-fixed. Here, we present a method in mice for binge-like ethanol consumption during head-fixation. Male and female mice were first acclimated to ethanol by providing home cage access to 20% ethanol (v/v) for 4 or 8 days. After home cage drinking, mice consumed ethanol from a lick spout during head-fixation. We used two-photon calcium imaging during the head-fixed drinking paradigm to record from a large population of PFC neurons (>1000) to explore how acute ethanol affects their activity. Drinking exerted temporally heterogeneous effects on ACC activity at single neuron and population levels. Intoxication modulated the tonic activity of some neurons while others showed phasic responses around ethanol receipt. Population level activity did not show tonic or phasic modulation but tracked ethanol consumption over the minute-timescale. Network level interactions assessed through between-neuron pairwise correlations were largely res...
Source: Neuropharmacology - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Source Type: research