Patterns of brain activation associated with contextual conditioning to methamphetamine in mice

Classical conditioning is thought to play a key role in addiction. The authors used c-Fos immunohistochemistry to demonstrate a conditioned physiological response to methamphetamine (meth) in mice. Male outbred mice were placed into an environment where they had previously experienced 2 mg/kg meth or saline. The meth-paired mice displayed increased c-Fos in several brain regions, including the nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, basolateral amygdala, and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. No conditioned locomotor activity was observed, but individual activity levels strongly correlated with c-Fos in many regions. A batch effect among immunohistochemical assays was demonstrated. Results implicate specific brain regions in classical conditioning to meth and demonstrate the importance of considering locomotor activity and batch in a c-Fos study.