Topic: stress-induced ethanol drinking

Recent data show that women are more likely to drink alcohol to cope with stress, compared to men. We hypothesized that changes in circuit function in the basolateral (BLA) and central amygdala (CeA) of females could prime for this sex-specific effect of stress on ethanol drinking. To test this, we first developed a behavioral model that captures sex differences in stress-induced ethanol drinking. After training male and female C57BL/6J mice in a drinking-in-the-dark paradigm, we show that female mice drink more ethanol following repeated exposure to a foot shock stressor, compared to male mic