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Even though the consequences of alcohol dependence (AD) clearly are devastating and obvious to observers, the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of the disease are far from clear and understood. The search for these mechanisms is made even more difficult by the vast number of genes, proteins, and pathways in the human body that potentially could be involved, and by the obvious...

Agonist: An agent that mimics the actions or effects of another agent at a receptor (e.g., a drug that mimics the effects of a neurotransmitter).

Allele: One of two or more forms of a gene that reside at the same position on a pair of chromosomes; different alleles of a gene may serve the same function (e.g., code for an enzyme that breaks down alcohol) but may result in proteins with different...

A major goal of genetic research into alcoholism and related traits is to better understand the biology underlying this disease by identifying specific genes in which variations contribute to a person’s risk of developing the disease and then examining the pathways through which these genes and their variants affect the disease. Researchers hope to use this knowledge to develop new, more effective...

Over the last decade, three large-scale projects have catalyzed a revolution in genetic technologies and studies. First, the Human Genome Project laid the foundation for modern genetic studies of disease by determining the basic sequence of the 3 billion building blocks (i.e., base pairs) that make up the human genome and by identifying the approximately 25,000 genes included in this sequence (htt...