In breakthrough study researchers claim that people may be hereditarily inclined to becoming alcoholics at birth. Researchers from the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, after examining the brainwaves of problem drinkers, identified a gene that may be associated with the problem of drinking.
For their research, the researchers tested nearly eleven hundred people having several generations of problem drinking in the family in US. All the study participants were asked to complete a series of tasks. After completing those tasks they carried out scans of those participants, they identified a common patterns of brain activity in people those at risk of dependence.
The same patterns of brain activity were also found in the children of problem drinkers. Therefore such children are apparently at the same risk of becoming alcoholics. After discovering the echo of a brain wave they identified a strong connection between drinking and the serotonin receptor gene HTR7.
Serotonin receptor gene HTR7 affects mood and sleep and antidepressant drugs frequently work by regulating it. So, it is likely that some people are more prone to become alcoholics as of their genetics. However, researcher suspected that the gene discovered might not be the final offender.
According to geneticist Laura Almasy, some people are uncomfortable with the idea that there is a genetic element to dependence. But it is known that there are biological elements to risk of addiction, some have to do with how you metabolize alcohol. Several of them have to do with differences in brains of the people that make them more or less susceptible to addiction.
They believe this difference in brainwave patterns between people at risk and people not at risk is an echo of whatever that underlying biological difference is that makes some people more susceptible than others, added Almasy. The study findings reported in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.