An Interview with Graeme F. Mason, Ph.D. Professor of Diagnostic
Radiology and Psychiatry Director of Metabolic Modeling;
Psychiatric MRS, and Neuroimaging Sciences Yale University
School of Medicine Dana Grantee: 2005-2010 Q: You are studying
genetic vulnerability to alcohol dependence and have recently
completed a small study using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
(MRS) to evaluate alcohol-induced changes in the concentration
of certain neurotransmitters. What have you found so far? Graeme
F. Mason: We set out to see if people with a family history of
alcohol dependence and people with a known genetic vulnerability
to alcohol dependence (the GABRA2 receptor gene) would react
less, neurochemically, to alcohol intake than those without the
genetic vulnerability. We don’t have that answer yet because we
need more subjects to have a really effective comparison of
people who are family history positive vs. negative. But we did
see a very rapid effect of alcohol on levels of the inhibitory
neurotransmitter GABA: i