Given that PPAR agonists reduce alcohol consumption in rodents and have been nominated in the treatment of CNS diseases and drug addictions based on animal studies, we evaluated the effects of selective agonists for each subtype, as well as dual and pan (triple) agonists, on ethanol intake in C57BL/6J mice using two different consumption tests. Next, we used data from a human genome wide association study (GWAS) from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA), which has recruited multiplex families densely affected with AD, to analyze the association of SNPs in PPARA, PPARD, PPARG, and PPARGC1A with two phenotypes – AD and withdrawal. Using both mouse and human data, we provide overlapping evidence for a role of specific PPARs in ethanol action.
