MAPT is another example of a pleiotropic relationship between AUD and other neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Located on chromosome 17, MAPT, encodes the tau proteins best known medically for their role in central nervous system disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease38, frontotemporal dementia39, Parkinson’s disease38, and the primary tauopathies progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration40. Recently, Hoffman and colleagues41 showed that alcohol use can upregulate the expression of pTau (Ser199/Ser202) in the hippocampus of C57BL/6J mice. Another study in humans observed differences in CSF-Tau levels in demented people with alcohol use vs Alzheimer disease patients42. CRHR1 (corticotropin-releasing hormone type I receptor) is another gene on 17q.21.31, that has been reported to be associated with alcoholism43. However, in our analysis, we did not observe an association between CRHR1 expression and alcohol consumption.
