ABSTRACT

Alcoholism is a critical, widespread problem. Alcohol affects several places throughout the body, but its effect in the brain is responsible for its addictive action. Determining the interactions between alcohol and its molecular targets within the brain, and investigating how this interaction could induce the development of addiction are major challenges in alcoholism research. A recent paper published by a group of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) addresses some of these questions. This group has used a mouse model where the mice have been genetically modified to eliminate an important protein in the Central Nervous System. The authors have reported that the mutant animals show greater sensitivity to alcohol that their normal littermates. Interestingly, that observation can be correlated with a reduced ethanol self-administration in the mutant mice when compared with wild type mice. Most important, the authors demonstrate at the biochemical level, the reason of this hypersensitivity. It is precisely this correlation between behavior and biochemistry what makes this paper enormously interesting from a therapeutic point of view, since it opens new ways to fight possible causes that might contribute to the development of alcoholism.