The highly expressed adenosine receptor Adora1 had 1.4-fold increased expression. Ethanol has been shown to increase the expression of the α1 adenosine receptor, especially after multiple withdrawal periods (Butler and Prendergast, 2012). Ethanol also increases extracellular adenosine (Butler and Prendergast, 2012). Adora1 is linked to Gi/o proteins, which inhibit adenylate cyclase, and thus decrease cAMP production. Adenosine may be responsible for some of the sedating/sleep inducing effects of ethanol (Butler and Prendergast, 2012). P2RX type purinergic receptors had mixed changes but the overall effect was increased expression for these receptors.
