Several findings suggest females may be more vulnerable to neuroimmune signaling following alcohol exposure (Alfonso-Loeches et al., 2013; Bala et al., 2014; Barton et al., 2017; Baxter-Potter et al., 2017; Pascual et al., 2017; Wilhelm et al., 2015). In turn, the ability of neuroimmune-related drugs to reduce drinking may also depend on sex (Blednov et al., 2016a). Although more recent behavioral studies of neuroimmune signaling have tested both male and female mice (Bray et al., 2017; Burma et al., 2017; Harris et al., 2017) (Blednov et al., 2016a), the majority of studies examined only males. Including females in future studies will provide key insights into the potential sex-specific mechanisms of neuroimmune dysregulation in AUD.
