The effects that alcohol has on a person are common knowledge, but the impact it can have on the brain is still somewhat of a mystery. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have set out to determine the molecular details of what alcohol does to the brain.
In a recent Science Daily piece, the findings of this study were examined as they revealed an alcohol trigger site located within an ion channel protein. The research team believes that their findings could lead to the development of novel treatments for alcoholism, drug addiction and epilepsy.
The alcohol found in basic intoxicating drinks is ethanol. This substance is known to alter the communication between the brain cells. As a result of this research, it is now known that alcohol directly interacts with a specific nook contained within a channel protein, which plays a key role in several brain functions associated with drugs of abuse and seizures.
“There’s been a lot of interest in the field to find out how alcohol acts in the brain,” said Paul A. Slesinger, Ph.D., in the Science Daily. Slesinger is an associate professor in the Peptide Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, who led the study. “One of several views held that ethanol works by interacting directly with ion channel proteins, but there were no studies that visualized the site of association.”
During this study, when amino acid substitutions were systematically introduced that denied alcohol molecules with access to the potential alcohol binding site, alcohol could no longer efficiently activate the channel. This finding confirmed that the team had hit upon an important regulatory site for alcohol.
The research team believes that in essence, alcohol hijacks the activation mechanism of these channels and stabilizes the opening of the channel. By understanding this function, teams can then set out to study how treatments can address this particular aspect on the effect of alcohol on the brain in order to improve the options available.
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