Drunk Worms?

[bbuie]

Posted on Fri, Dec. 12, 2003

Study isolates gene that causes drunkenness, sobriety in worms
By Paul Elias
The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Researchers found a gene responsible for drunkenness in worms after plying thousands of the tiny creatures with booze. The discovery could boost the fight against alcoholism.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, conducted the experiment, which is published in today's edition of the science journal Cell.

It is believed that alcohol affects all animals similarly, so humans, like worms, may possess a single gene responsible for drunkenness.

"Our end goal is to find a way to cure alcoholism and drug abuse," Dr. Steven McIntire said. "We hope to develop effective therapeutics to improve the ability of people to stop drinking."

McIntire and the other scientists dosed hundreds of thousands of worms with enough alcohol that they would be too drunk to drive legally -- if they were humans with the same blood-alcohol levels.

The drunken worms moved slower than sober ones, and they laid fewer eggs. Teetotaler worms formed a neat S shape to power propulsion while the bodies of drunken worms were straighter and less active.

Researchers found during the six-year project that the sober worms had a mutated version of the gene, which appeared to make them immune to alcohol's intoxicating effects.

The natural job of the gene they found is to help slow brain transmissions. Alcohol increases the gene's activity, which slows down brain activity even more. But if the gene is disabled, as it was in the sober worms, the brain never gets the chance to slow down.

Still, McIntire and other addiction experts caution that the findings don't apply directly to humans.

"Humans are a lot more complicated than the worm," said neurobiology professor Steven Treistman of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Treistman said that many other genes are probably involved in helping people get drunk and that the work with worms couldn't measure other effects of human intoxication, such as slurred speech and loss of inhibition.

Nonetheless, Treistman said, the findings are important because they highlight an important target in the fight against alcoholism.



Thought this was an interesting read. i wonder if they took them to dinner and a movie, too?:D

[Stump]

That's how you kill slugs in the garden. Ply them with beer. They get drunk and drown in the beer. hee hee hee...

LMAO about dinner/movie. How do they come up with these things????

[Orleander]

:eek: On my God!!! Is that what the little worms at the bottom of tequila are for? I've been eating their test subjects!

[EHStaley]

Originally posted by bbuie
The drunken worms moved slower than sober ones, and they laid fewer eggs.

Most drunk humans are more likely to have sex, based on that their entire theory of us and worms being similar should be thrown out.

LOL :D