Beginning with Lewohl et al. (2000) there are now more than 200 studies using some form of genome-wide profiling to examine the relationships among alcohol effects, excessive alcohol consumption and the brain transcriptome. Contet (2012) reviewed the existing literature and noted that the genes associated with the risk of excessive consumption and/or the effects of excessive consumption had regionally specific effects on gene expression. Subsequent studies have confirmed and extended the “region" effect (e.g., Melendez et al., 2012; Osterndorff-Kahanek et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2016; Mulligan et al., 2017). It is important to note that these studies also by and large confirmed earlier observations (e.g., Kimpel et al., 2007) that regional differences in gene expression are generally far greater than the effects of treatment, strain or line (e.g., Mulligan et al., 2017). From a somewhat different perspective we have also observed that the regional transcriptional network signature is largely independent of genetic diversity (Iancu et al., 2010).
