An increasing perspective conceptualizes obesity and overeating as disorders related to addictive-like processes that could share common neurobiological mechanisms. In the present study, we aimed at validating an animal model of eating addictive-like behavior in mice, based on the DSM-5 substance use disorder criteria, using operant conditioning maintained by highly palatable chocolate-flavored pellets. For this purpose, we evaluated persistence of food-seeking during a period of non-availability of food, motivation for food, and perseverance of responding when the reward was associated with a punishment. This model has allowed identifying extreme subpopulations of mice related to addictive-like behavior. We investigated in these subpopulations the epigenetic and proteomic changes. A significant decrease in DNA methylation of CNR1 gene promoter was revealed in the prefrontal cortex of addict-like mice, which was associated with an upregulation of CB1 protein expression in the same brain area. The pharmacological blockade (rimonabant 3 mg/kg; i.p.) of CB1 receptor during the late training period reduced the percentage of mice that accomplished addiction criteria, which is in agreement with the reduced performance of CB1 knockout mice in this operant training. Proteomic studies have identified proteins differentially expressed in mice vulnerable or not to addictive-like behavior in the hippocampus, striatum, and prefrontal cortex. These changes included proteins involved in impulsivity-like behavior, synaptic plasticity, and cannabinoid signaling modulation, such as alpha-synuclein, phosphatase 1-alpha, doublecortin-like kinase 2, and diacylglycerol kinase zeta, and were validated by immunoblotting. This model provides an excellent tool to investigate the neurobiological substrate underlying the vulnerability to develop eating addictive-like behavior.

This work was supported by the DG Research of the European Commission FP7 (No. HEALTH-F2 2013-602891), the Spanish ‘RETICS-Instituto de Salud Carlos III’ (No. RD12/0028/0023), the Spanish ‘Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación’ (No. SAF2011-29864), and the Catalan Government ‘AGAUR-Generalitat de Catalunya’ (Nos. 2009SGR00731 and 2014-SGR-1547). The FEDER funds support is also acknowledged. SM and AB were supported by FI predoctoral fellowships of the Catalan Government, and JG-C was supported by a ‘Juan de la Cierva’ postdoctoral fellowship from the Spanish ‘Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación’. Also support by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under grants FIRB-RBFR12DELS to CDA and PRIN2010-11 to MM is gratefully acknowledged. The authors declare no conflict of interest.