Although ethanol and other drugs of abuse, such as opioids and psychostimulants, initially hit different molecular targets, the neurobiological mechanisms mediating positive reinforcement and transition to addiction strikingly share common neural substrates across drugs [68]. A couple of recent studies have undertaken to compare the transcriptional effects of ethanol with those of other drugs of abuse, in an effort to differentiate expression patterns specific to a given class of drug and to highlight commonly regulated genes that could play a central role in drug addiction.
