According to the results of a study published in the journal Science Advances, brain gene editing may be a potential treatment for anxiety disorders and alcohol addiction.
Brain gene editing is a potential method for treating anxiety disorders and alcohol addiction – (Photo: MEDICAL NEWS TODAY).
Everyone makes mistakes, and those who struggle with excessive drinking during their teenage years may soon choose to press the “reset” button on their brains.
Scientists from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) in the United States have studied the impacts of excessive drinking in adolescents on health later in life.
In previous research, the UIC team found that underage drinking alters the amygdala, a core part of the brain responsible for regulating many emotions. According to this study, individuals who start drinking before the age of 21 are more likely to develop anxiety disorders and alcohol use disorders in adulthood.
The researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago utilized a gene-editing tool known as CRISPR-dCas9 in their experiments.
The CRISPR-dCas9 gene-editing toolkit was developed by two female scientists: Dr. Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier at Hannover Medical School (Germany) and Umeå University (Sweden).
The CRISPR-dCas9 gene editing process consists of three steps: Step “find your match” – the RNA sequence locates and pairs with a segment of DNA that needs editing. The second step involves cutting out the faulty segment – removing the defective part of the DNA that needs fixing. Finally, the last step is inserting the template DNA segment – inserting a piece of DNA to replace the cut-out faulty segment.
The UIC team studied mice that had previously consumed alcohol during their “teen” years. As a result, those that underwent the gene-editing technique exhibited significantly reduced anxiety and almost achieved sobriety.
Excessive drinking during adolescence is a serious public health issue. This study helps people understand more about what happens in the developing brain when exposed to high alcohol concentrations.
More importantly, this research gives us hope that one day effective treatments will be available for cases of alcohol addiction starting from adolescence.
