Opioid pharmacogenetics of alcohol addiction
Opioid pharmacogenetics of alcohol addiction
This chapter reviews clinical studies of naltrexone in alcoholism and pharmacogenetic studies of naltrexone clinical trials for alcohol addiction. There is growing interest in the association between μ-opioid receptors and addiction. Extensive data, across species, suggest that the 118G form of the μ-opioid receptor is characterized by decreased transcription and translation. Murine, primate, and human laboratory studies show that the 118G (or its species-specific homologue) variant permits alcohol to have a greater rewarding valence, leading to increased alcohol consumption. The human and rhesus data are equally convincing that naltrexone is able to blunt this greater rewarding signal.
Keywords: opioids, alcohol reward, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, alcohol consumption, naltrexone, clinical studies
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