The neurobiological systems that influence addiction vulnerability may do so by acting on reward pathways, behavioral dyscontrol, and vulnerability to stress and anxiety. The CRH system is one that is known to be dysregulated in alcohol-dependent subjects and in which variation may influence both stress-responding and novelty-seeking. We screened the rhesus macaque CRH gene and regulatory region and identified a SNP that disrupted a GRE half-site in the CRH regulatory region. We demonstrated that this functional variant predicted endocrine and behavioral differences in addition to levels of alcohol self-administration in the rhesus macaque.
