Finally, candidate functional genes for the preoccupation-anticipation domain (see Table 2) include: genetic variation in a set of known signaling genes of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-cAMP response element-binding protein 1/5 (CREB1 and CREB5) neuronal pathway that were negatively correlated with fMRI signals during an alcohol-cue task in the precuneus and parietal brain areas; alcohol dependent individuals with these risk variants had greater brain activation during the alcohol-cue task, suggesting that the variants influence alterations in learned drug seeking associations (Chen et al., 2015). In another study, the common functional BDNF Val66Met polymorphism was associated with deficits in executive functions in adult offspring of alcohol-dependent probands (Benzerouk et al., 2013).
