Lectures and seminars StratNeuro Lunch Seminar Series: "Neurobiological Mechanisms of Individual Vulnerability to Alcohol Addiction-like Behaviors"

"Neurobiological Mechanisms of Individual Vulnerability to Alcohol Addiction-like Behaviors"

Speaker

Professor Markus Heilig, Linköping University

Abstract

Despite major advance in the neuroscience of alcohol addiction, no mechanistically novel clinical treatments have been approved in the past two decades. Furthermore, promising candidate medications emerging from basic science have failed in clinical development. In attempting to understand this translational gap, we identify some potential limitations of common research strategies. First, only a minority of regular users develop addiction, yet research has sought to identify underlying neurobiological mechanisms without taking in account individual variation. Second, alcohol addiction reflects a shift in behavioral choices, in which alcohol is increasingly chosen at the expense of alternative, healthy rewards; yet mechanisms of alcohol self-administration have typically been studied in the absence of alternative rewards. Finally, addiction is characterized by continued use despite negative consequences, yet in most preclinical studies, self-administration of alcohol has no consequences other than obtaining alcohol. This lecture will summarize a line of research in which we have attempted to address these issues. This work has pointed to GABA-ergic transmission in the Central Nucleus of Amygdal (CeA) as a key mechanism in alcohol addiction, and as a promising target for novel pharmacotherapeutics.