Quitting Alcohol: What Happens To Your Brain When You Stop Drinking?
A broad consensus does exist as to the involvement of various neurotransmitter pathways, but defining the precise causative alleles or groups of alleles in the genes of the particular neurotransmitter pathways involved in alcoholism is a challenge to be overcome in the coming years. This polymorphism has therefore appropriately been named as serotonin intron 2 (STin2). These alleles are of 9 base pair repeats, 10 base pair repeats as well as 12 base pair repeats. The 9 base pair repeat is tharros house extremely rare and in statistical studies, often clubbed with the 10 base pair repeat. It doesn’t carry the same kind of stigma or social abhorrence which other drugs of abuse such as cocaine, methamphetamines, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) etc., carry. Alcohol is widely accepted in the society and consumed by everyone, young and the old alike, women and men included.
This is your brain on alcohol
They can also develop addictions, cravings and compulsions, and a joyless state known as “anhedonia.” Elevated levels of dopamine can cause anxiety and hyperactivity. Blackouts are gaps in a person’s memory of events that occurred while they were intoxicated. These gaps happen when a person drinks enough alcohol that it temporarily blocks the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage—known as memory consolidation—in a brain area called the hippocampus. Adolescent brains are more vulnerable to the negative effects of alcohol than adult brains. Misuse of alcohol during adolescence can alter brain development, potentially resulting in long-lasting changes in brain structure and function.
Feel like you should be drinking less? Start here
GABA or GABA is the third neurotransmitter whose functioning is critical in understanding the genetics of alcohol addiction. GABA as a neurotransmitter has been long known to be affected by alcohol consumption. Recently, two sub types of the GABAA receptor have come into the spotlight for showing what can possibly be a genetic predisposition to alcohol addiction. These two subtypes are namely GABA A receptor α1 (GABRA1) and GABA A receptor α6 (GABRA6).
Problems with the serotonin pathway can cause obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorders and depression. Serotonin also modulates the behavioral response to unfairness.48 Most of the music therapy addiction drugs used to treat depression today work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain.49 The image below, shows, the regions of the brain where serotonin reaches Figure 3. A study conducted by39 to assess the association of Taq1A polymorphism and AD in south Indian population yielded negative results.40,41 also did not find any association with Taq1A polymorphism and AD amongst Mexican-Americans. The Taq1A allele frequency of non-assessed controls was more than that of non-assessed alcoholics. However, the allele frequency of assessed alcoholics was found to be 3 times that of assessed controls. The study by42 found conflicting results for male and female subjects, with female subjects showing AD only on the basis of alcohol disorder.44 In their study of alcohol-dependence in Polish population reported negative association between Taq1A allele and AD.
Quitting Alcohol: What Happens To Your Brain When You Stop Drinking?
Opioid peptide antagonists would interfere with this process, thereby reducing dopamine release. A large body of evidence indicates that dopamine plays an important role in motivation and reinforcement6 (Wise 1982; Robbins et al. 1989; Di Chiara 1995). These factors include (1) the type of stimuli that activate dopaminergic neurons, (2) the specific brain area(s) affected by dopamine, and (3) the mode of dopaminergic neurotransmission (i.e., whether phasic-synaptic or tonic-nonsynaptic). Different twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous alleles of the genes in the various pathways are being studied in different population groups across the world. However, what remains to be seen is a definitive consensus on a causative allele of alcoholism.
- Dopamine alters the sensitivity of its target neurons to other neurotransmitters, particularly glutamate.
- A large body of evidence indicates that dopamine plays an important role in motivation and reinforcement6 (Wise 1982; Robbins et al. 1989; Di Chiara 1995).
- Through abstinence, however, studies have shown that a regeneration of brain function, metabolism and brain volume (including white matter) is possible.
- Moreover, these brain changes are important contributing factors to the development of alcohol use disorders, including acute intoxication, long-term misuse and dependence.
At the beginning of the study in 1985, all of the participants were healthy and none were dependent on alcohol. Over the next 30 years, the participants answered detailed questions about their alcohol intake and took tests to measure memory, reasoning, and verbal skills. In the study, 165 AD patients, 113 heroin dependent patients and 420 healthy controls from a homogeneous Spanish Caucasian population were genotyped using standard methods. The study found that genotypic frequencies of STin2 VNTR polymorphism did not differ significantly across the three groups. The study concludes by stating that their data does not support a role of serotonergic polymorphisms in AD.
One mutation is known as the “long” allele and the other mutation is known as the “short” allele. The difference between the two alleles is that the “short” version of the allele has a 44 bp deletion in the 5’ regulatory region of the gene. This 44 bp deletion occurs 1 kb upstream from the transcription initiation site of the gene.53 This is depicted through the following diagram Figure 4.
Previous research about the neurobiochemisty of alcohol dependence has focused on the DA system, but many of the findings have been contradictory. Further research aimed at clarifying the interaction between the DA system, the glutamatergic system and other neurotransmitter systems is needed before it will be possible to improve the effectiveness of interventions for preventing and treating alcohol dependence. Dopamine release in the NAc shell may be instrumental in the development of alcohol dependence. Psychological dependence on alcohol develops because alcohol-related stimuli acquire excessive motivational properties that induce an intense desire to consume alcohol-containing beverages (i.e., craving).
