Chunk #106 — 3 Neuropeptide Roles in Acute and Chronic Alcohol Actions — 3.1 Corticotropin-Releasing Factor — 3.1.3 Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Actions in the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis
The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), a brain region associated with anxiety, has enriched expression of CRF (Ju and Han 1989) and CRFRs (Van Pett et al. 2000). A component of the extended amygdala, the BNST is anatomically well-situated to integrate stress and reward-related processing in the CNS, regulating activation of the HPA axis and reward circuits. The BNST receives dense GABAergic and CRF input from the CeA (Sakanaka et al. 1986), suggesting that CRF regulation of function in the BNST is critical for shaping BNST output. Pharmacological studies suggest that CRF signaling in the BNST is involved in anxiety (Lee and Davis 1997) and stress-induced relapse to cocaine self-administration (Erb and Stewart 1999). Moreover, a stimulus that promotes anxiogenic responses, the withdrawal of rodents from chronic EtOH exposure, produces rises in extracellular levels of CRF in the BNST (Olive et al. 2002). Interactions between CRF and GABAergic transmission in BNST have been reported to play a role in regulating stress and anxiety (Kash and Winder 2006). In this study the actions of CRF on GABAergic transmission in
