Can I Buy You a Drink? Genetics May Determine Sensitivity to Other People's Drinking Behavior

Your friend walks into a bar to meet you for happy hour. He sidles up to the bar and orders a drink -- does that make you more likely to get a drink yourself? According to new findings reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, genetics may determine the extent to which you are influenced by social drinking cues -- signals such as advertisements, drinks placed on a bar, and seeing other people around you drinking.

Drinking alcohol increases levels of dopamine -- a brain chemical that causes pleasure and makes us feel good. The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) has been shown to be involved in motivation of seeking out rewards. Research has suggested that carrying a specific form (or variant) of this gene -- one that includes seven or more repeats of a certain section of the gene -- may be associated with craving caused by alcohol-related cues. Psychological scientist Helle Larsen from Radboud University in The Netherlands and her colleagues wanted to investigate if this 7-repeat gene variant plays a role in how an individual responds to alcohol-related cues.

More at Science Daily