Well-developed experimental approaches can test directly whether changes in candidate genes impact behavioral response to ethanol in vertebrate (Crabbe, 2002) and invertebrate (Grotewiel and Bettinger, 2015) model organisms (MO). Orthologs of genes that affect simple ethanol responses in invertebrates also affect more complex ethanol responses in mammals, including measures of sensitivity and voluntary drinking (Kapfhamer et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2008; Bhandari et al., 2012). This approach has previously been successful in demonstrating functional relevance of genes implicated by GWAS in ethanol response behaviors (Schumann et al., 2011).
