Animal models offer significant advantages for studies attempting to tease apart genetic and environmental influences on an individual’s risk for alcoholism. Given their methodological power, it is surprising how little research into this area has been done using genetic animal models. One trait that has been found to be genetically determined is alcohol preference of inbred mouse strains. Thus, specific mouse strains have displayed their tendencies to drink more or less alcohol by choice repeatedly across 50 years of studies. In fact, alcohol preference in these animals is even more replicable across studies (and therefore, across environments) than brain weight (Wahlsten et al. 2006), suggesting that it is strongly influenced by genetic effects. Not all alcohol traits are so stable, however, and the combined effects of genetic and environmental manipulations could be exploited more fully using genetic animal models.
