Brain potassium channels may unlock future precision medicine approaches for alcoholism
Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), through collaborative e fforts with the NIH-funded INIAstress Consortium, have identified novel potassium (K+) channel genes within addiction brain circuitry that are altered by alcohol dependence and correlate with drinking levels in a mouse model of alcohol drinking. Significant reduction of heavy alcohol drinking after administration of a KV7 channel-positive modulator validated Kcnq, one of the identified genes that encodes KV7 type K+ channels, as a potential pharmacogenetic target. These preclinical findings, published in the February 2017 special issue of Alcohol on mouse genetic models of alcohol-stress interactions, suggest that K+ channels could be promising therapeutic targets that may advance personalized medicine approaches for treating heavy drinking in alcoholics. Alcohol is known to change how neurons fire, and K+ channels play a crucial role in modulating a neuron's excitability by return...