“Individuals with alcohol use disorder exhibit compulsive habitual behaviors that are thought to be, in part, a consequence of chronic and persistent use of alcohol.
The endocannabinoid system plays a critical role in habit learning and in ethanol self-administration, but the role of this neuromodulatory system in the expression of habitual alcohol seeking is unknown.
Here, we investigated the role of the endocannabinoid system in established alcohol habits using contingency degradation in male C57BL/6 mice.
These results demonstrate an important role for endocannabinoid signaling in the motivation to seek ethanol, in ethanol-motivated habits, and suggest that pharmacological manipulations of endocannabinoid signaling could be effective therapeutics for treating alcohol use disorder.”