A paradigm for ethanol consumption in head-fixed mice during prefrontal cortical two-photon calcium imaging.

C57BL/6J mice voluntarily consume ethanol to binge-like levels during head-fixation, with females consuming more ethanol than males.Mice show differences in frontloading and licking behavior for head-fixed ethanol and sucrose consumption.Head-fixed paradigm enables two-photon calcium imaging in the anterior cingulate cortex subdivision of the prefrontal cortex.Acute ethanol increases and decreases single neuron activity at fast (seconds) and slow (minutes) time scales but does not alter pairwise correlations between neurons.