title: Subjective response as a consideration in the pharmacogenetics of alcoholism treatment.
abstract: Currently available pharmacological treatments for alcoholism have modest efficacy and high individual variability in treatment outcomes, both of which have been partially attributed to genetic factors. One path to reducing the variability and improving the efficacy associated with these pharmacotherapies may be to identify overlapping genetic contributions to individual differences in both subjective responses to alcohol and alcoholism pharmacotherapy outcomes. As acute subjective response to alcohol is highly predictive of future alcohol related problems, identifying such shared genetic mechanisms may inform the development of personalized treatments that can effectively target converging pathophysiological mechanisms that convey risk for alcoholism. The focus of this review is to revisit the association between subjective response to alcohol and the etiology of alcoholism while also describing genetic contributions to this relationship, discuss potential pharmacogenetic approaches to target subjective response to alcohol in order to improve the treatment of alcoholism and examine conceptual and methodological issues associated with these topics, and outline future approaches to overcome these challenges.
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, University of California, 1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel Jo
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Roche
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, University of California, 1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
authors.forename: Lara A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Ray
mesh_terms: D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D001294:Attitude to Health; D006801:Humans; D009292:Narcotic Antagonists / Q000008:administration & dosage; D010597:Pharmacogenetics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D009292:Narcotic Antagonists
keywords: 5-HT3; 5-HTT; GABAA; OPRM1; alcohol; alcoholism; naltrexone; pharmacogenetics; pharmacotherapy; subjective response