Social defeat stress switches the neural system mediating benzodiazepine conditioned motivation

Benzodiazepines have been demonstrated to have a high abuse liability in persons suffering from anxiety but have demonstrated mixed abuse liability findings in preclinical models. We hypothesized that by modeling anxiety in a male C57BL/6 mouse model it would be possible to reveal a preference for benzodiazepines within this subpopulation through negative reinforcement. Using the Tube Test of Social Dominance and the Resident/Intruder Paradigm we investigated whether animals identified as dominant or submissive/defeated would differentially display a preference for midazolam (a short acting benzodiazepine) in a conditioned place preference paradigm. Consistent with our hypotheses, benzodiazepine conditioned motivation was mediated by negative reinforcement as submissive but not dominant mice displayed a preference for midazolam. Furthermore, different neural systems mediated midazolam conditioned motivation depending on the stress status of the animal (single vs. repeated stress-as induced by the Resident/Intruder Paradigm). Singly stressed animals showed midazolam place preferences through a dopamine-independent pathway, whereas the place preferences of repeatedly stressed animals were mediated through a dopamine-dependent pathway. This demonstrates that stress is sufficient for switching the neural system mediating midazolam conditioned motivation. Finally, midazolam reinforcement in the conditioned place preference paradigm was shown to be predictive for dominance/submission status.