Loading...
People who can “hold their liquor” are at increased risk for developing alcoholism, suggesting that low sensitivity to intoxication is a predictor or mediator of alcohol use disorders. In a clever series of animal experiments, researchers identified a gene affecting alcohol-related behaviors.
Fruit flies normally respond to ethanol with initial startle, followed by “sedation”— behavioral slowing, falling down, and loss of movement (much like intoxication). The researchers identified certain flies with normal baseline locomotor behavior and typical ethanol absorption but marked resistance to alcohol-induced sedation. These flies had mutations in a kinase gene that has a human homologue. The researchers named the gene happyhour (hppy) because …