Traits Associated With Early Life Stress Among Treatment-Seeking Alcoholics

Background:

• Researchers want to see if people with alcohol dependence have more trouble learning to feel calm, or learn to fear things more easily, than non-alcoholics and to study how early life stress (ELS) affects these things.

Objective:

• To see if people with alcohol dependence and/or ELS have a harder time learning to feel calm than people without these conditions.

Eligibility:

• Adults age 21 65 with diagnosed alcohol dependence, with/without ELS.
• Healthy volunteers age 21 65 with/without ELS.

Design:

• All participants will be screened with medical history and physical exam. They will have blood and urine tests, and a psychological assessment.
• Participants with alcohol dependence will:
• be at the NIH Clinical Center for 4 weeks. Then they will have weekly telephone calls and 3 in-person visits over 3 months.
• follow the NIH alcohol treatment program during the study. They cannot take psychiatric medications.
• rate their alcohol craving, depression, and anxiety throughout the study.
• have fear conditioning and extinction sessions that use noise and mild electric shock. Some take place during a functional MRI (fMRI) scan. Participants will lie in a machine that takes images, while they perform tasks.
• listen to recordings that describe stressful events. They will rate their feelings and have blood drawn through an intravenous (IV) line.
• have their hormone response to stress tested. They will take a pill and get a hormone via an IV, then have blood drawn.
• Healthy volunteers will:
• have 2 inpatient stays, each lasting a few days. They will answer questions about how they feel.
• have fear conditioning and extinction sessions, including fMRI.
• have blood drawn several times.