Effects of binge-drinking on motivational valence of methamphetamine addiction in C57BL/6J female mice

A history of binge-drinking elicits a higher predisposition for methamphetamine (MA) abuse. Given the existing comorbidity of MA and alcohol, the lack of effective treatments highlights the importance of discovering the biopsychological effects of these two drugs, to develop effective biological and pharmacological treatments. To this effect, we took a cohort of 23 adult female C57BL/6 mice and split them into two groups. 11 mice were subjected a to a modified drinking-in-the-dark paradigm where the mice were presented with 4 bottles (5, 10, 20, and 40% v/v) for 2 hours/day for 14 consecutive days. The remaining 12 mice were only allowed to drink water. After this period, the mice underwent a 3 day of light-cycle acclimation period, and then were ran through a conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure where the mice were given 0.2 mL of saline in the morning and 0.2 mL of methamphetamine (0.25, 0.5, 1, or 4 mg/kg) in the afternoon for 4 days. We ran several multi-level ANOVAs, and found a significant increase in the sensitivity of the motivational valence of MA at 0.25 mg/kg dose for binge- drinking mice. The 4 mg/kg dose had an opposite effect, showing a significant increase in place-aversion for binge- drinking mice.