Assessment of stress-independent binge-like eating behavior in mice

In humans, binge eating is central to the harmful effects of bulimia and binge-eating disorder (BED). The development of preclinical mouse models of binge-like eating behavior has proved to be challenging, as minor stressors can significantly inhibit food intake in this species. Herein, we present two reinstatement models that can reliably induce binge-like eating behavior in mice. Both utilize a schedule of intermittent access to a palatable, high-energy-dense diet (HED). We describe the typical procedures for inducing binge-like eating behavior with daily 1-h or weekly 24-h free-choice access to the HED. No investigator-initiated caloric restriction or exogenous stressors are imposed to induce bingeing using either paradigm. We compare the results obtained with the two models and the unique features of both. The intermittent access to HED allows one to obtain reproducible binge-like eating behavior that can be maintained consistently for several weeks. Furthermore, these two hedonic feeding paradigms are highly reproducible across the common C57BL/6 and 129SvEv inbred mouse strains. Therefore, the models described herein may prove useful in the analysis of feeding behavior in genetically engineered mouse strains.