Genetic and Neurobiological Etiologies of Alcohol Dependence

Kim, Sung Gon; Moon, Eun Soo

Abstract

The etiologies of alcohol dependence may be divided into three factors:biological, psychological, and social factors. Among these, many of the current articles deal with the genetic factors, due to rapid developments in methodology and so on. Because of these reasons, it is thought that it would be worthful to review the articles related to the genetic etiologies and other neurobiological etiologies of alcohol dependence at this point. Because alcohol dependence is a complicated and heterogenous disease, it is not likely to be associated with a single gene polymorphism. And as it is still early times in identifying its genetic etiology, I think it is not easy to make conclusion in this field now. However, I believe that many recent studies using endophenotype and haplotype will give us more promising results. The fact that unlike other substances, alcohol dose not act on only one or two neurotransmitter receptors makes neurobiological research to be not easy one. It is interesting that some of the articles reported in this fields recently dose not confined to brain reward system but extended to CRF or molecular biology.