COGNITIVE & PHARMACOLOGICAL MODULATION OF HUMAN NEUROENDOCRINE STRESS AXIS-CRH

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. This research project will contribute to our understanding of how the brain regulates the hormones and behaviors involved in our responses to stress. We will also be exploring the role of psychological factors that might affect the release of stress hormones from the pituitary and adrenal glands. Participants will be a group of healthy people who do not have any particular problems with anxiety, depression, or stress-related disorders. There will be about 30 subjects between 18 and 45 years of age, who are medically healthy and are not taking medication or drugs. Subjects will be admitted on two afternoons to the General Clinical Research Center at the University of Michigan Hospital. They will have an intravenous line in place in a vein in their arm for about 5 hours. We will draw blood samples through this line and will also use it to give them either a dose of a hormone called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) or a placebo (inactive substance). CRH is a brain chemical that provides primary control over the release of the stress hormones we are interested in, by directly stimulating the release of another hormone (adrenocorticotropin) from the pituitary gland, which is an important gland located at the base of the brain. We will be measuring both adrenocorticotropin and cortisol, both of which are released by people when attempting to cope with a challenge or stressor. We will be using different types of instructions to also study how thoughts and feelings can affect release of these hormones. Which instructions subjects receive will be determined randomly. The study may help us better understand the role of psychological factors in human stress response systems. We hope this work will contribute to the development of improved approaches to the management of stress. We also hope that it will help us to develop models that will be useful in studying the human stress response system in different psychiatric disorders and perhaps help us search for the causes of some of these disorders.'