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What's one who fails to stop drinking, even though he notices the damage that he's doing to her and understands that in the worst case, they can they kill them?
Swedish and American researchers did an experiment including rats, who study this. Even when the researchers gave them a shock, there was a small group of animals that continued to push a pedal that gave them alcohol.
This group is about as large as the proportion of people who become dependent on alcohol
published in Science, the researchers also highlighted some of the differences that they found in rats of these rats, which they say explains some of the alcoholism.
Coaches and drinking more this weekend
Became self-destructive
Researchers from Linköping University taught rats to push a pedal to get themselves a tasty drink. They had two options: alcohol and sugar water
The idea was that the experience should look like reality, where we often have more choice among the favorites.
And the vast majority of rats choose sugar water. After many years of testing, the Swedish team had more than 600 rats in their experiments and about 15% gave bark in sugar water and gave up alcohol – as many people who are dependent on it.
continued to fly on the alcohol pedal even though it gave them a painful electric shock in the foot, comparing researchers to the self-destruct that characterizes alcoholics.
– We must understand that a key feature of the addiction is that you know that it will hurt you, maybe and you kill, and yet something has gone wrong with the motivation test and you keep up with it, says one of the researchers behind the study, Markus Heilig, in a press release from Linköping University
Image of the experience When the rat presses the pedal, it is fed with a little liquid. The lamp gives a signal that something is happening. (Photo: Linköping University)
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[19659000] Creating a loop to manage emotions
Holy began studying addiction in rats and mice in the mid-2000s in an attempt to find new ways to treat the disorder.
He has encountered many genes, substances, and regions in the brain that he believes contribute to the habituation of rats.
In his latest study, he and his colleagues observed several hundred genes in several regions of the brain. What prompted searchers to turn on the loudest was what they saw in the part of the brain called the amygdala. This part is important in the treatment of emotions.
In particular, researchers found a gene at unusually low levels. This gene has the function of giving the GAT-3 protein an important task, helping to reduce the amount of substance GABA.
If the protein does not, GABA accumulates around nerve cells – and nerve cells become less active, according to The Atlantic who interviewed Holy.
Heilig thinks that this can give rats problems with fear and stress, and help them be more vulnerable to alcohol.
In 2017, Finnish researchers also found a link between alcohol consumption and GABA in the brain. However, they have seen changes in this signal substance as a possible consequence of drinking, rather than the possible cause.
However, the new study could be the strongest for the reason to drink. When the researchers manipulated GABA in some nonalcoholic rats, so they had the same difference that they had alcoholic, they also started to prefer the drug to sugar.
This simply had a striking effect on the behavior of the rats, says Eric Augier, a fellow colleague who led the study, according to the Swedish press release.
Brains examined dead alcoholics
However: – Treating alcoholism in rats is not important. The important thing is how does this appear in people with an alcohol addiction, "Heilig explains to The Atlantic
Therefore, researchers have been trying to find answers to this. In collaboration with American researchers from the University of Texas, GAT-3 levels were analyzed in the brains of deceased people.
Among people with documented alcohol dependence, there was less GAT-3 in the amygdala than in According to the scientific study
it is one of the relatively rare cases where we find an interesting change in our animal models and the same difference in the minds of people with an alcohol addiction, "says Dayne Mayfield – An American researcher
There he sees a confirmation that the experience of the root in this study provides such a good picture of the same mechanisms in humans that it is possible to test possible drugs against alcohol dependence.
is working with a pharmaceutical company to do exactly that, according to the Swedish press release.
research.no has already written about k The ritual according to which alcohol-resistant drugs, as it already exists, are used too little:
References:
E. Augier et al: a molecular mechanism for choosing alcohol instead of an alternative reward. Science Published 22 June 2018.
Ed Yong: A Historical Study on the Origins of Alcoholism, article in The Atlantic
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