From the ArcaMax Publishing, Health & Fitness Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/healthtips/s-572838-432604
LA JOLLA, Calif. (UPI) -- Alcohol's effect on the brain may stem from
ethanol's ability to lubricate on the molecular level, U.S.
researchers suggest.
Using X-ray crystallography, the researchers found a specific nook
contained within a channel protein of the brain where ethanol -- the
cause of alcohol's inebriating effects -- may bind and act to alter
brain cells' communication.
This ion channel plays a key role in several brain functions
associated with drugs of abuse and seizures, and the researchers say
the results of their study, published in Nature Neuroscience, could
lead to the development of new treatments not only for alcoholism but
drug addiction and epilepsy.
The ethanol trigger site may also create "short circuits" by opening
the brain's ion channels -- called GIRK. Potassium ions leak out of
the neuron and decrease brain neuron activity.
"Alcohol may accomplish this by lubricating the activation gears of
the channel," study leader Paul Slesinger of the Peptide Biology
Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla,
Calif., said in a statement.
"One of several views held that ethanol works by interacting directly
with ion channel proteins, but there were no studies that visualized
the site of association."