Effect of Prazosin and Naltrexone on Alcohol Craving and Alcohol Consumption in Veterans and Servicemembers with and without PTSD
Abstract
Military personnel are at risk for developing hazardous drinking patterns post-deployment that can negatively impact their health and psychiatric stability. This phenomenon is compounded by the fact that despite recent gains in establishing effective pharmacological and behavioral treatments for alcohol use disorders (AUD), nonremittance and relapse remain major problems for those with AUDs. One individual factor that is strongly associated with continued problematic use and relapse is craving. Three different types of craving have been hypothesized, reward, relief, and obsessive, and each is postulated to be mediated by different neurological substrates. The neural networks postulated to subserve reward and relief craving receive afferents from and project to noradrenergic neurons in non-human primates and humans express 1 adrenergic receptors. Given the interplay of the noradrenergic system with craving-related brain systems, blocking 1 receptors with the noradrenergic antagonist, prazosin, theoretically has the potential to modulate reward and relief craving.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1105338
Entities
People
- Andrew Saxon
- Tracy Simpson