Journal: eNeuro
Article Title: A Novel Mouse Home Cage Lickometer System Reveals Sex- and Housing-Based Influences on Alcohol Drinking
doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0234-24.2024
Figure Lengend Snippet: Female mice form a significantly higher preference for ethanol compared with males in a group-housed continuous access two-bottle choice task, and males display an undulating pattern of ethanol preference that aligns with cage-changing days. A , Timeline of experimental setup. Ten male and 10 female mice across four cages were implanted with RFID tags under the scruff of the neck and given 7 d to recover and habituate with the LIQ PARTI devices. Mice were then exposed to a continuous two-bottle choice paradigm with water only for 1 week, 3% ethanol and water for 3 d, 7% ethanol and water for 1 week, and 10% ethanol and water for 4 weeks. Mice were then socially isolated with the LIQ HD system for 3 weeks and then returned to group housing with LIQ PARTI for 16 d. Lick number per hour and estimated volume consumed from male and female mice at the ethanol bottle ( B ) and water bottle ( C ) throughout ethanol exposure with LIQ PARTI prior to social isolation. D , Ethanol preference score calculated by lick number in male and female mice throughout ethanol exposure with LIQ PARTI prior to social isolation. E , Male and female mice had a similar number of average daily licks at the ethanol bottle during exposure to 3 and 7% ethanol, and female mice compared with males had a significantly higher number of licks at the ethanol bottle during exposure to 10% ethanol (repeated-measures two-way ANOVA, with the Geisser–Greenhouse correction and Tukey's multiple-comparisons test; significant main effect of sex p < 0.01 and significant interaction effect of sex × time p < 0.0001). F , Female mice compared with males had significantly more licks at the water bottle during exposure to 3% ethanol, and male mice had significantly more licks at the water bottle during exposure to 10% ethanol compared with females (repeated measures two-way ANOVA, with the Geisser–Greenhouse correction and Tukey's multiple-comparisons test; significant main effect of time p < 0.05 and significant interaction effect of sex × time p < 0.0001). G , Male and female mice show similar levels of average total lick number per day (both bottles) throughout ethanol exposure, except for during 3% ethanol and water where males displayed significantly fewer licks than females (repeated-measures two-way ANOVA, with the Geisser–Greenhouse correction and Tukey's multiple-comparisons test; significant main effect of sex p < 0.01 and time p < 0.01, significant interaction effect of sex × time p < 0.0001). H , Male mice have a significantly higher preference for ethanol during exposure to 3% ethanol and water, but they significantly reduce their preference through exposure to 10% ethanol (repeated-measures two-way ANOVA, with the Geisser–Greenhouse correction and Tukey's multiple-comparisons test; significant interaction effect of sex × time p < 0.0001). Female mice have a significantly higher preference for ethanol than males during exposure to 10% ethanol with LIQ PARTI prior to social isolation. The solid lines ( B–D ) represent the mean lick number and estimated volume consumed in 1 h bins, and the red/blue shaded areas represent ±SEM. Gray-shaded areas represent the dark cycle and vertical dotted lines represent when cages were cleaned, when bottles were weighed, and when bottle positions were swapped. Error bars ( E–H ) represent ±SEM ( n = 10 mice per group and reported as individual mice). * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, **** p < 0.0001. See Extended Data for the LIQ PARTI wiring diagram and schematic, Extended Data for the LIQ PARTI Arduino source code, Extended Data for a representative annotated validation video, Extended Data for the LIQ PARTI video validation and correlation data, Extended Data for the water week lick data, Extended Data for the water week individual bout data, and Extended Data for the estimated hourly and daily ethanol intake (g/kg).
Article Snippet: Each cage is controlled by a single Arduino MEGA microcontroller connected to a real-time clock plus data logging shield (Adafruit), a capacitive touchscreen shield (Adafruit), a 12-channel MPR121 capacitive sensor breakout board (Adafruit), and two 125 kHz RFID readers (SparkFun).
Techniques: Isolation, Biomarker Discovery
