Overall, these results suggest that drugs that suppress noradrenergic signaling could be effective pharmacotherapeutic agents for the treatment of alcohol-use disorders, but care will be required to choose the agents that will be particularly useful in reducing alcohol drinking without introducing potentially deleterious side effects. More work is needed in order to identify the optimal combination of agents that are selective for specific α2-adrenergic receptor subtypes, or agents with mixed adrenergic receptor activity, that are most effective for decreasing alcohol intake. An assessment of the ability of various noradrenergic agents to decrease alcohol drinking is likely to result in the establishment of a hierarchy of drug efficacy within this class of drugs that hold promise as potential pharmacotherapeutic agents for the treatment of alcohol abuse and alcoholism.
