Fruit fly to barfly

Hawaiian fruit fly

Getting drunk is a problem. Some of us do it easily...others find quaffing even great flagons of ale hardly hit the spot. The answer to the problem is likely to be genetic, and research into the effects of alcohol on the brain could have serious implications for helping heavy drinkers and alcoholics.

Dormant genes in the brains of heavy drinkers are switched on to counteract the effects of alcohol and once activated it is thought that the brain may then need alcohol to work efficiently. This could explain why chronic alcoholics often need an early morning drink just to get going. Now, a team at the Sussex Centre for Research into Alcohol and Alcoholism and Drug Addiction hope to identify exactly which genes are turned on by alcohol. They hope the results will help explain why some people are more likely than others to fall prey to alcoholism. The team involved comprises molecular biologist Lynne Mayne, neuroscientist, Jane Davies and experimental psychologist David "Dai" Stephens and they will look for how alcohol affects the genes of fruit flies.       

	Drosophila

About half the genes in a fruit fly have counterparts in humans with many basic biological processes using the same sets of genes in all animals. "Although the precise alterations in fly and mammal brains which result in adaptation to alcohol are likely to differ, the genes controlling the switching-on of arrays of other genes may well be related," explains Davies. Mayne points out that there are some 1200 genes switched on in response to alcohol but identifying the ones involved in addiction is the next step. Stephens hopes that the research, "will help give us a better understanding of alcoholism and perhaps pave the way for eventual treatments."