Postmortem human brain samples were obtained from the New South Wales Tissue Resource Centre at the University of Sydney and have been previously characterized16. Briefly, diagnosis of alcohol use disorder (AUD) was based on DSM-IV and was confirmed by physician interviews, review of hospital medical records, questionnaires to next-of-kin, and from pathology, radiology, and neuropsychology reports. Tissue samples were matched as closely as possible according to age, sex, postmortem interval, pH of tissue, disease classification, and cause of death. To be included as part of the alcohol-dependent cohort, subjects had to meet the following criteria: greater than 18 years of age, no head injury at the time of death, lack of developmental disorder, no recent cerebral stroke, no history of other psychiatric or neurological disorders, no history of intravenous drug use or polysubstance use, negative screen for human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitides B and C, and postmortem interval not exceeding 48 h.
