One question that arises is whether we should expect a relationship between gene expression changes in human alcoholics and high drinking mice. An important consideration is that the human cases used in the gene expression studies were chosen for levels of alcohol consumption, not for alcohol dependence (Liu et al. 2006). In addition, we do not know which rodent behaviors or tests are consilent with human alcoholism (Crabbe, 2010) but there is evidence that chromosomal regions important for human alcohol dependence are syntenic with regions that influence alcohol consumption in mice (Ehlers et al., 2010).
