Traumatic childhood and cocaine abuse: what blood can teach us

Anno
2021
Proponente -
Struttura
Sottosettore ERC del proponente del progetto
SH4_3
Componenti gruppo di ricerca
Componente Categoria
Valeria Carola Aggiungi Tutor di riferimento (Professore o Ricercatore afferente allo stesso Dipartimento del Proponente)
Abstract

Experiencing traumatic childhood is a risk factor for developing substance use disorder (SUD). SUD patients with a history of traumatic childhood often develop a subtype of SUD that is characterised by earlier onset, high relapse rate and more severe symptoms. To date, only accurate psychometric assessment can aid the proper diagnosis but still no objective measure is available to support the stratification of SUD patients. We have recently shown that peripheral blood in SUD patients can store in the long-term information regarding the quality of early life. Specifically, we identified alterations in the expression level of few inflammatory genes and cytokines that could discriminate SUD patients with or without the experience of traumatic childhood. Thus, a more accurate investigation to characterise these alterations is needed to understand the impact of traumatic childhood on peripheral systems and its interaction with substance abuse. Here we propose to perform an unbiased genome-wide scale analysis of protein in blood plasma of healthy controls or SUD patients during abstinence. The analysis of proteome will compare the level of expression of all proteins that are present in individual plasma samples. These results combined with the psychometric evaluation will help to identify a number of proteins that are altered in SUD patients also based on the quality of early life. This experiment will provide insights into the long-term impact of traumatic childhood on biological systems and will identify peripheral biomarkers in SUD patients that may represent indicators of increased SUD severity, and eventually predictors of relapse.

ERC
SH4_3, SH4_1
Keywords:
PSICOLOGIA CLINICA, PSICOLOGIA, PSICOBIOLOGIA, NEUROBIOLOGIA DELLO SVILUPPO

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