Poor social interactions during early life, such as poor parent-offspring relationship, constitute a stressor than can influence proneness to alcohol misuse [10, 14]. To date, the relationship between mesocorticolimbic and striatal Fkbp5 expression and early life stress-mediated propensity to alcohol drinking remains unknown. The present study investigated the effect of maternal separation and adult voluntary alcohol drinking on Fkbp5 gene expression in the mesocorticolimbic and striatal areas of rats. In the presence of ELS, higher Fkbp5 gene expression was expected in the Amy, alcohol was hypothesized to counterbalance the effect of ELS on Fkbp5 gene expression in the Acb, whereas the direction of effects in other brain regions was not predicted. Furthermore, in a translational approach, the interaction effect between FKBP5 rs1360780 genotype and parent-child relationship on problematic drinking was tested in a population-based sample of young adults. The hypothesis was that drinking problems would be more frequent among carriers of the T allele whom experienced a poor relationship with their parents.
