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Alcohol’s Negative Emotional Side: The Role of Stress Neurobiology in Alcohol Use Disorder
The word “alcohol” often conjures up positive feelings and associations with fun, socializing, relaxing, and partying. Yet there is another side to drinking alcohol, especially with risky, hazardous levels of consumption. This side is associated with distress and may include anxiety, loneliness, pain, and depressive symptoms.1 This has been labeled the “dark side,” or “negative...
The Synaptic Interactions of Alcohol and the Endogenous Cannabinoid System
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a chronic, relapsing brain disorder, characterized by a compromised ability to control alcohol use despite adverse occupational, social, or health consequences. Results from a 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 5% of individuals over age 12 had AUD, affecting 14.5 million people in the United States. Alcohol and cannabis products are...
Biobehavioral Interactions Between Stress and Alcohol
A person with alcoholism engages in risky or dangerous drinking despite experiencing serious negative physical and social consequences. Such persistence in pursuing damaging behaviors suggests that the short-term “appetitive” results of drinking (such as intoxication and losing one’s inhibitions) have greater control over the alcoholic’s behavior than do the negative consequences. From a...
Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can interfere with both embryonic and fetal development, producing a wide range of outcomes that fall under the rubric of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). FASD is the nondiagnostic umbrella term used to refer to the full range of effects that can occur following prenatal alcohol exposure. Such exposure can produce a variety of effects, including...
Advances in human neuroimaging have expanded our ability to understand the functioning of the brain, with particular recent advances fostering our analytic capacity to examine networks between the brain’s nerve cells (i.e., neurons) and neuroconnectivity (i.e., neural networks). Relevant to the field of alcoholism, several researchers recently have applied these strategies to groups at genetic...
Advances in Electrophysiological Research
The discovery and recording of electrical activity (electroencephalography [EEG]) in the human brain in 1924 by the German physician Hans Berger (Collura 1993; Haas 2003) has led to numerous scientific breakthroughs and clinical applications (Borck 2005; Gloor 1994). Recording brain activity in humans using scalp electrodes provides a noninvasive, sensitive measure of ongoing brain function...
Treatment of Alcohol Dependence With Drug Antagonists of the Stress Response
Although alcohol dependence affects 4 percent of the adult population and is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 2009), fewer than 15 percent of people with alcoholism receive treatment (Hasin et al. 2007). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Fourth Edition Text Revision (DSM–IV–TR) ...
Binge Drinking - Editor's Note
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of consumption that causes blood alcohol concentration to rise to .08%—the legal limit for adults ages 21 or older operating a motor vehicle—or more. This level typically occurs after a woman consumes four drinks or a man consumes five drinks—in about 2 hours. Research suggests that three out of four...
Immune Function Genes, Genetics, and the Neurobiology of Addiction
The nervous system and the immune system interact closely to regulate the body’s immune responses, including inflammatory responses. Accordingly, the term “neuroimmune system” refers to the immune system and those components of the nervous system that help regulate immune responses and also encompasses the hormones and other signaling molecules that convey signals between the immune and nervous...
