In addition to providing evidence of the contribution of GRIK1 to the risk of AD, the present findings may have relevance for the pharmacogenetic analysis of topiramate in the treatment of AD. The use of the intron 9 SNP to characterize alcohol-dependent subjects in treatment trials of topiramate may be warranted based on the findings reported here and would be feasible, given the relatively high prevalence of this allele. GRIK1 was recently shown by Uhl et al. (2008) to be among the genes that were nominally associated with successful attempts to quit smoking in pooled genomewide association analyses in at least two of three independent treatment samples, supporting its potential utility as a predictor of treatment response in addictive disorders.
