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----------------------------------------------------------------------- Gene may explain alcohol sensitivity ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON (October 24, 1997 11:40 p.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - Rats that stay drunk longer than normal rats show that a gene may explain why some people can drink more than others, Japanese researchers reported on Thursday. The rats were bred to lack a single gene known as Fyn, Tsuyoshi Miyakawa of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama and geneticist Takeshi Yagi of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Okazaki said. Rats without the gene stayed drunk for longer than normal mice, Miyakawa's team wrote in the journal Science, which is published on Friday. "These mice were hypersensitive to the hypnotic effect of ethanol (alcohol)," they wrote. They said the enzyme produced by Fyn counteracts the depressive effects alcohol has on neurons. Mice without the gene had no way to counter the effects of the alcohol. "These results indicate that Fyn affects behavioral, biochemical and physiological responses to ethanol," Miyakawa wrote. They said alcohol was one of the most widely abused drugs in the world, yet little was known about how it actually affected brain cells to cause intoxication. Some scientists believe that alcoholics are resistant to the effects of alcohol. It had been believed that people who are hypersensitive to alcohol, getting drunk faster and suffering worse hangovers, processed alcohol less efficiently in the liver. Miyakawa's research indicates there is a genetic role, too -- although rats are very different from people. They picked the Fyn gene because it was already known to play a role in memory and Yagi's team had been testing its function in sensitivity to various drugs. Copyright 1997 Nando.net Copyright 1997 Reuters <http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/health/102497/health18_29268_noframes.html> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- janet paterson - 50/9 - sinemet/selegiline/prozac - [log in to unmask]