Both genetic and epigenetic (environment influenced) factors affect alcohol consumption and have been shown to aid in the transition from use to abuse to addiction via neuroadaptations occurring in the brain (Cloninger, 1987; Moonat & Pandey, 2012; Pandey, Ugale, Zhang, Tang, & Prakash, 2008; Starkman, Sakharkar, & Pandey, 2012). Epigenetics can be loosely defined as a means of “stably” propagating a change or “heritability” of a cellular state that is not encoded in the DNA itself (Holliday, 1987). The brain essentially consists of post-differentiated non-dividing cells, and epigenetic regulation of neuronal pathways become critical to the establishment and maintenance of neuronal homeostasis and plasticity in the brain by mediating both transient and stable changes in gene expression. Epigenetic regulation in post-mitotic cells, such as neurons, brings about some debate since it is not propagated through cell divisions and therefore has prompted researchers to classify it into a subfield called “Neuroepigenetics” (Day & Sweatt, 2010). Epigenetic regulatory mechanisms include covalent modifications to histones, transcription factor-mediated energy-dependent chromatin remodeling, DNA modification by methylation at cytosine residues and control of gene expression by
