The caudate nucleus forms part of the dorsal striatum and, more broadly, the basal ganglia, a key component of the executive control loop that is recruited in the onset and maintenance of AUD25. The caudate has been implicated in cue-elicited activation, dopamine increase, and subjective reports of craving26,27. In animal models, chronic ethanol exposure alters neural circuits in the basal ganglia28,29. A recent study reported differences in gene expression in the dorsal striatum of alcohol-preferring rats30. A transcriptome-wide association study found that among 13 human brain tissues, the caudate was the region with the most genes whose predicted expression was associated with problematic alcohol use (PAU), a trait that combines AUD with problematic alcohol drinking6.
