{"id":118308,"date":"2023-12-01T14:28:07","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T19:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?p=118308"},"modified":"2023-12-01T14:28:07","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T19:28:07","slug":"study-identifies-peptide-as-key-mediator-in-heavy-alcohol-drinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2023\/12\/01\/study-identifies-peptide-as-key-mediator-in-heavy-alcohol-drinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Identifies Peptide as Key Mediator in Heavy Alcohol Drinking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alcohol is the most common addictive substance in the world. Every year in the U.S. excessive alcohol use costs $249 billion and causes approximately 88,000 deaths, as well as various chronic diseases and social issues. Alcohol use disorder, a highly prevalent, chronic, relapsing disorder, affects more than 14 million people in the U.S. alone, in addition to being severely under-treated, with only three modestly effective pharmacological therapies available.<\/p>\n<p>Chronic exposure to alcohol has been shown to produce profound neuroadaptations in specific brain regions, including the recruitment of key stress neurotransmitters, ultimately causing changes in the body that sustain excessive drinking. The area of the brain known as the \u201cbed nucleus of the stria terminalis\u201d (BNST) is critically involved in the behavioral response to stress as well as in chronic, pathological alcohol use.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Boston University Chobanian &amp; Avedisian School of Medicine have identified that a peptide called pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP), is involved in heavy alcohol drinking. In addition, they have discovered that this peptide acts in the BNST area.<\/p>\n<p>Using an established experimental model for heavy, intermittent alcohol drinking, the researchers observed that during withdrawal this model showed increased levels of the stress neuropeptide PACAP selectively in the BNST, compared to the control model.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, a similar increase was also observed in the levels of another stress neuropeptide closely related to PACAP, the calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP. Both peptides have been implicated in stress as well as pain sensitivity, but their role in alcohol addiction is less established.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2023\/12\/Sabino-e1701458314142.jpg\" alt=\"head and shoulders of woman with long dark hair wearing dark suit jacket and pearl necklance and earrings, smiling\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-118309\" width=\"150\" height=\"163\" \/>The researchers then used a virus in a transgenic model to block the neural pathways containing PACAP that specifically arrive to the BNST. &#8220;We found that inhibiting PACAP to the BNST dramatically reduced heavy ethanol drinking,&#8221; explained co-corresponding author <a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.bu.edu\/Valentina.Sabino\">Valentina Sabino<\/a>, PhD, co-director of the school\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/ppb\/graduate-program\/pharmacology\/training-program\/laboratories\/lad\/\">Laboratory of Addictive Disorders<\/a> as well as professor of pharmacology, physiology &amp; biophysics.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2013\/06\/Pietro-Cottone-e1701458446416.jpg\" alt=\"head and shoulders of man with dark hair, facial hair, dark suit jacket, light blue shirt and blue patterned tie.\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8013 alignright\" width=\"150\" height=\"139\" \/>According to the researchers, these results provide evidence that this protein mediates the addictive properties of alcohol. &#8220;We found a key player, PACAP, driving heavy alcohol drinking, which can be targeted for the development of novel pharmacological therapies,&#8221; added co-corresponding author <a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.bu.edu\/Pietro.Cottone\">Pietro Cottone<\/a>, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology, physiology &amp; biophysics\u00a0 and co-director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/ppb\/graduate-program\/pharmacology\/training-program\/laboratories\/lad\/\">Laboratory of Addictive Disorders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These findings appear <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eneuro.org\/content\/early\/2023\/11\/29\/ENEURO.0424-23.2023\">online<\/a> in the journal eNeuro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The co-corresponding authors Valentina Sabino, PhD, and Pietro Cottone, PhD, published their findings online in the journal eNeuro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118308"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118311,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118308\/revisions\/118311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}