Study leader Marisa Roberto of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., suggest their findings may help in the development of new drug treatments for substance abuse.
The six-year long study, published in Biological Psychiatry, found corticotropin-releasing factor key to the development and maintenance of alcohol dependence in animal models. The researchers also found blocking the hormone in the rats on a long-term basis alleviated the symptoms of alcohol dependence.
"I'm excited about this study," Roberto says in a statement. "It represents an important step in understanding how the brain changes when it moves from a normal to an alcohol-dependent state."
Roberto says the study explored "the dark side" of alcohol addiction -- people being compelled to drink, not because it is pleasurable but because it relieves the anxiety generated by abstinence and the stressful effects of withdrawal.
