Genetic Dispositions to Alcohol and Nicotine May Be Related
Researchers funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that a genetic disposition towards nicotine and alcohol may be linked. By breeding two strains of rats, one that liked to drink a lot and one that didn't, researchers studied their nicotine habits. By training the rats to push a lever to give themselves nicotine, they found that the rats predisposed to like alchol gave themselves about twice as much nicotine as the other rats. Because the rats had not been given alcohol, it isn't that actually drinking affected the rats' affection for nicotine, only the genes that coded for alcohol affinity. The two groups didn't show a difference in preference to cocaine, showing that the two groups didn't differ in a more general reward dispostion.