Social and environmental enrichment has different effects on ethanol and sucrose consumption in mice

• Published in: Brain and behavior Vol. 7; no. 8; pp. e00767 - n/a
• Main Authors: Holgate, Joan Y., Garcia, Hilary, Chatterjee, Susmita, Bartlett, Selena E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-08-2017; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Alcohol Drinking - psychology; Alcohol use; Animals; Choice Behavior; consumption; environment enrichment; ethanol; Ethanol - pharmacology; Male; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Models, Animal; Models, Psychological; Original Research; Rodents; Social Behavior; social enrichment; Social Environment; Substance-Related Disorders - prevention & control; Substance-Related Disorders - psychology; Sucrose; Sucrose - pharmacology; social enrichment; consumption; environment enrichment; sucrose; ethanol
• ISSN: 2162-3279; 2162-3279
• DOI: 10.1002/brb3.767

Background
Factors leading to the harmful consumption of substances, like alcohol and sucrose, involve a complex interaction of genes and the environment. While we cannot control the genes we inherit, we can modify our environment. Understanding the role that social and environmental experiences play in alcohol and sucrose consumption is critical for developing preventative interventions and treatments for alcohol use disorders and obesity.
Methods
We used the drinking in the dark two‐bottle choice (2BC) model of ethanol and sucrose consumption to compare male C57BL/6 mice housed in the IntelliCage (an automated device capable of simultaneously measuring behaviors of up to 16 mice living in an enriched social environment) with mice housed in standard isolated and social environments.
Results
Consistent with previous publications on ethanol‐naïve and ‐experienced mice, social and environmental enrichment reduced ethanol preference. Isolated mice had the highest ethanol preference and IntelliCage mice the least, regardless of prior ethanol experience. In mice with no prior sucrose experience, the addition of social and environmental enrichment increased sucrose preference. However, moving isolated mice to enriched conditions did not affect sucrose preference in sucrose‐experienced mice.
Conclusions
The impact of social and environmental enrichment on ethanol consumption differs from sucrose consumption suggesting that interventions and treatments developed for alcohol use disorders may not be suitable for sucrose consumption disorders.
The IntelliCage is useful for examining the involvement of social and environmental enrichment in consumption behaviors in mice. The addition of enrichment reduced ethanol consumption in ethanol‐naïve and ‐experienced mice and increased sucrose consumption in sucrose‐naïve but not ‐experienced mice. The behavioral characteristics of sucrose consumption are different from ethanol consumption, suggesting treatment approaches similar to that used for AUDs may not be appropriate for controlling excessive sugar consumption.