New study: Brain gene editing to treat anxiety and alcoholism

Brain gene editing is a potential measure to treat anxiety disorders and alcoholism - (Photo: MEDICAL NEWS TODAY).

Everyone makes mistakes, and people who struggled with binge drinking in their teens may soon opt to hit the "factory reset" button on their brains.

Scientists from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) in the US, studied the effects of adolescent excessive drinking on health later in life.

In previous research, the UIC team found that teen drinking alters the amygdala, the core part of the brain responsible for regulating many emotions. According to this study, people who start drinking before the age of 21 are more likely to develop anxiety and alcohol use disorders in adulthood.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago used a gene-editing tool - called CRISPR-dCas9 - in their experiments.

The CRISPR-dCas9 gene editing toolkit was developed by two female scientists. They are Dr. Jennifer Doudna, at the University of California Berkeley (USA) and Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, at the Medical University of Hannover (Germany) and Umea University (Sweden).

CRISPR-dCas9's gene editing process consists of three steps: The "finding" step - the RNA code finds and pairs with a piece of DNA to be repaired. Excision step - cut out the error segment in the DNA to be repaired. Finally, the step of inserting the sample DNA fragment - inserting the DNA fragment to replace the error fragment that has been cut.

The UIC team studied rats who drank alcohol during their "teenage" years. As a result, the animals that underwent gene editing did not show too much anxiety and almost stopped drinking.

Teenage drinking is a serious public health problem. This research helps people better understand what happens in developing brains when they are exposed to high levels of alcohol.

More importantly, this study gives us hope that one day there will be effective treatments for cases of adolescent alcoholism.