Chronic alcohol-related neural and peripheral stress system dysfunction: Effects on alcohol craving, relapse and recovery

Chronic heavy alcohol use disrupts multilevel peripheral and brain adaptations in stress and homeostatic pathways but it is not clear which, if any, changes promote compulsive alcohol craving and relapse risk. Inpatient and outpatient early abstinent treatment engaged alcohol dependent (AD) patients and healthy social drinking controls were studied in separate laboratory and neuroimaging experiments in which their basal tonic and phasic stress and alcohol craving responses to acute stress, alcohol and neutral relaxing cues states were assessed.
Source: Alcohol - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: research