Chunk #37 — Examples of Specific Environments that Could be Modeled Across Species: Early Alcohol Exposures and the Peer Environment — The Peer Social Environment
The role of the social environment in animal modeling of GXE presents a number of interesting opportunities and challenges. The opportunities stem from the ability to carefully manipulate aspects of the social environment to determine the exact nature of the social environmental effect (e.g., imitative modeling, pharmacological enhancement of normal social reinforcement), specifying the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning such an effect, and relating such mechanisms to candidate genes. The challenges arise when trying to find appropriate models or even species where relevant social behaviors “have evolved in their natural ethological and ecological contexts” (IOM [2006], p. 134). From this perspective, whether or not an animal appears to imitate another animal consuming alcohol isn’t a sufficient criterion for deeming it a consilient model. The issue is why it is doing so and whether it serves a similar function.
