来自德州生物医学中心的研究队伍，测试了存在酒精依赖问题的美国家庭中1064名不同代际的被试。在辨识了被试们脑电波的“回应”后，他们发现了在饮酒和血清素受体基因HTR7之间的强关联。血清素影响情绪与睡眠——通常，抗抑郁的药物是通过调整血清素来发挥作用的。
他们让被试完成一系列指定任务——以发现这些有依赖酒精倾向的人们其行为模式的共同之处，之后，对他们的脑电波进行扫描。他们发现这些酒精依赖者的孩子们其大脑活动有着同样的模式，这意味着他们有着同样的嗜酒倾向。
研究者们进一步指出，某些人更倾向于变得嗜酒是因为他们的基因。然而，他们坚持认为扫描的图片非常的复杂，基因的区隔并非终极罪因。基因学家Laura Almasy 说道：许多人对于基因影响嗜酒这个结论表示很难接受。但是我们知道酒精依赖的风险肯定有生物的因素，至少来说，酒精依赖肯定与你如何代谢酒精有关。人们大脑的反应显示，生物因素或多或少会影响人们对于酒精依赖的程度。我们认为在普通人群和高危人群之间脑电波模式的这种差异，是对“更具酒精依赖的人群与普通人群存在生物差异”这一观点的支持。
这一研究发现已经发表在《美国医学遗传学期刊B》（American Journal of Medical Genetics B）上，并已发布在生物医学研究所的研究通讯中。
Alamasy女士补充道，脑电波扫描的图片信息量大，如此复杂，因而将血清素受体作为研究目标并不是终极研究目的。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1002/ajmg.b.31136
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Genome-wide association study of theta band event-related oscillations identifies serotonin receptor gene HTR7 influencing risk of alcohol dependence
Mark Zlojutro, Niklas Manz, Madhavi Rangaswamy, Xiaoling Xuei, Leah Flury-Wetherill, Daniel Koller, Laura J. Bierut, Alison Goate, Victor Hesselbrock, Samuel Kuperman, John Nurnberger Jr., John P. Rice, Marc A. Schuckit, Tatiana Foroud, Howard J. Edenberg, Bernice Porjesz, Laura Almasy
Event-related brain oscillations (EROs) represent highly heritable neuroelectrical correlates of human perception and cognitive performance that exhibit marked deficits in patients with various psychiatric disorders. We report the results of the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of an ERO endophenotype—frontal theta ERO evoked by visual oddball targets during P300 response in 1,064 unrelated individuals drawn from a study of alcohol dependence. Forty-two SNPs of the Illumina HumanHap 1M microarray were selected from the theta ERO GWAS for replication in family-based samples (N=1,095), with four markers revealing nominally significant association. The most significant marker from the two-stage study is rs4907240 located within ARID protein 5A gene (ARID5A) on chromosome 2q11 (unadjusted, Fisher's combined P=3.68×106). However, the most intriguing association to emerge is with rs7916403 in serotonin receptor gene HTR7 on chromosome 10q23 (combined P=1.53×104), implicating the serotonergic system in the neurophysiological underpinnings of theta EROs. Moreover, promising SNPs were tested for association with diagnoses of alcohol dependence (DSM-IV), revealing a significant relationship with the HTR7 polymorphism among GWAS case–controls (P=0.008). Significant recessive genetic effects were also detected for alcohol dependence in both case–control and family-based samples (P=0.031 and 0.042, respectively), with the HTR7 risk allele corresponding to theta ERO reductions among homozygotes. These results suggest a role of the serotonergic system in the biological basis of alcohol dependence and underscore the utility of analyzing brain oscillations as a powerful approach to understanding complex genetic psychiatric disorders.
