Psychophysiological Precursors of Alcoholism

描述(申请人提供)：我们的长期目标是发展更好的 对酗酒高危人群的理解。酒精成瘾是一种 有遗传和环境因素的行为障碍。 家庭中的流行率和收养研究表明 酗酒是具有遗传性的更基本特征的一种表现 组件。计划中的研究基于这样一种假设，即中枢 整合情绪行为的神经系统过程在 与低危人群相比，酗酒高危人群。我们预测 改变的情绪处理将有三个标记物来区分 高危人群。它们是：1)人的特征平衡 积极到消极的情绪，2)压力中与情绪相关的变化 荷尔蒙、皮质醇，以及3)中枢神经系统情绪相关变化的指标。 激活，惊吓的眨眼。俄克拉何马州的一项随机电话调查 市区将用于识别180名年龄在18岁至25岁之间的男性和女性 风险很低，有酗酒和社交方面的不良家族史 饮酒模式，或高风险，有阳性家族史和社会背景 饮酒模式。本文提出了两项相关的研究。在研究1中，我们将 使用标准范式比较这两组人的惊吓眨眼 惊吓的大小和情绪调节通常发生在 产生消极和积极情绪的刺激。在研究2中，我们将扩展 通过研究惊吓眨眼的情绪调节来实现这一范式 以及皮质醇对负面情感挑战的反应。正常 对事件的情感反应取决于额叶皮质之间的相互作用 和边缘区域，而情绪的表达通过运动和内分泌 反应取决于下丘脑和脑干的正常调节。一个 发现情感体验的一致变化，以及改变 外周生理反应，可以提供对潜在的 酗酒风险中情绪行为的改变。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our long-term goal is to develop a better understanding of persons at risk for alcoholism. Alcohol addiction is a behavioral disorder that has genetic and environmental contributions. Prevalence within families and adoption studies indicate that the risk for alcoholism is one expression of more basic traits that have heritable components. The planned studies are based on the hypothesis that central nervous system processes that integrate emotional behavior are altered in persons at high risk for alcoholism relative to low risk persons. We predict that altered emotion processing will have three markers that should distinguish high-risk individuals. These are: 1) the person's characteristic balance of positive to negative emotions, 2) emotion-related changes in the stress hormone, cortisol, and 3) a measure of emotion-related change in central activation, the startle eyeblink. A random telephone survey of the Oklahoma City area will be used to identify 180 men and women, 18-25 years of age, who are low risk, having a negative family history of alcoholism and social drinking patterns, or high risk, with a positive family history and social drinking patterns. Two related studies are proposed. In Study 1, we will compare the groups using a standard paradigm to examine startle eyeblink magnitude and the emotion modulation of startle that normally occurs to negative and positive emotion-producing stimuli. In Study 2, we will extend that paradigm by examining the emotion modulation of the startle eyeblink together with cortisol responses to a negatively affective challenge. Normal affective response to events depends on interactions among the frontal cortex and limbic areas, while the expression of emotions via motoric and endocrine responses depends on normal regulation by the hypothalamus and brainstem. A finding of consistent changes in affective experience, along with altered peripheral physiological responses, can provide insights into the underlying alterations in emotional behavior in risk for alcoholism.