Over the last ten years, rates of alcohol use disorder (AUD) have increased in women by 84%, relative to a 35% increase in men (Grant et al., 2017). Rates of alcohol use and high-risk drinking have also increased in women by 16% and 58% relative to a 7% and 16% increase in men, respectively, over the last decade (Grant et al., 2017). A recent meta-analysis confirms that the increase in past year drinking and past year binge-drinking over the last fifteen years is nearly driven solely by women (Grucza et al., 2018). The rise in problematic drinking in women is particularly alarming given that women experience worse alcohol-related health consequences, including sex-specific consequences (Andersen, Andersen, Olsen, Grønbæk, & Strandberg-Larsen, 2012; National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2017; Peltier et al., 2019), compared to men. The robust increase in drinking among women underscores the critical need to identify underlying neural mechanisms that may contribute to problematic drinking in women to ultimately develop sex-appropriate treatments for AUD.
