Alcoholism could be in your genes, not your brain
Back to Topic
Click to Print
Useful Websites
Glossary Term Selection
But there is no single ‘alcoholism’ gene.
By Sophie Gallagher
New evidence furthers the claim that alcoholism is determined by your genes, and increases the likelihood that in the future we will be able to identify potential candidates likely to suffer.
Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine have identified hundreds of genes and genetic codes in rats that appear to play a role in increasing the desire to drink alcohol.
In the trials rats were carefully bred to either drink large amounts of alcohol or to reject it (mimicking all criteria of human alcoholism).
By breeding these animals specifically for these experiments, scientists were able to avoid issues that have plagued other alcoholism studies.
These issues included the inability to account for all family history of drinking and non-genetic economic, social and cultural factors that lead to heavy drinking.
After the rats had been bred, they were subject to genome analysis that found the drinking and non-drinking g...
Want to see the rest of this article?
Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?
- Useful related articles
- Video and multimedia references
- Statistical information and reference material
- Glossary of terms
- Key Facts and figures
- Related assignments
- Resource material and websites
