The objective of this Support Opportunity for Addiction Researchers (SOAR) R03 proposal is to integrate laboratory and imaging phenotypes for alcoholism by adding a neuroimaging component to a larger ongoing laboratory-based study of the genetics of subjective responses to alcohol and alcohol craving among alcohol dependent individuals. Specifically, we propose to enroll a subset of participants who complete our laboratory- based study in an imaging component which will characterize the neural bases of alcohol-induced craving. The within-subjects nature of the design will allow us to more directly examine the overlap between laboratory and imaging phenotypes. Importantly, the parent study seeks to further characterize the role of the Asn40Asp allele of the mu-opioid receptor (OPRM1) gene in these laboratory-based controlled phenotypes (i.e., subjective responses to alcohol and alcohol craving), therefore equal numbers of participants with and without the minor allele (Asp40) of the OPRM1 gene will be enrolled (Asn40, n = 10;Asp40, n = 10). As a result, this study will also clarify the role of this important genetic polymorphism by examining it on a neural level of analysis. The long-term objective of this research is to integrate findings across different levels of analysis in order to more fully characterize the neural and genetic bases of important alcoholism phenotypes, which in turn will be used to inform and refine intervention strategies.
The objective of this proposal is to integrate laboratory and imaging phenotypes for alcoholism by adding a neuroimaging component to a larger ongoing laboratory-based study of the genetics of subjective responses to alcohol and alcohol craving among alcohol dependent individuals. The completion of this project will more fully characterize the neural and genetic bases of important alcoholism phenotypes, which in turn will be used to refine intervention strategies.
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