The INIA-Stress consortium characterizes stress and alcohol effects on the nervous system at all levels, and in organisms ranging from mice to monkeys and humans. We employ a wide range of technologies including genetic analysis and measurements of ion channel function, synaptic activity and activity of neurons within active circuits in vivo, as well as analysis of stress-related behaviors and alcohol intake. The INIA has increased our understanding of the molecular, cellular and systems-based neuroadaptive changes that take place in the brain as a consequence of alcohol/stress interactions. A main goal of the informatics component of the INIA consortium is to promote INIA collaboration and provide INIA information management through development of collaborative bioinformatics. A secondary goal is to promote integrative and comparative bioinformatics by developing tools for computational analysis, data mining, interoperability and data integration.

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