Brain’s immune system could make us impulsive to drink alcohol 

Love to drown yourself in a peg of whiskey each evening? It may be due to impulsiveness of the brain’s immune system, according to a study.
The findings showed a link between the brain’s immunity and the motivation to drink alcohol at night.

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Findings:

• This may be because our body’s circadian rhythms affect the “reward” signals we receive in the brain from drug-related behaviour.
• And the peak time for this reward typically occurs during the evening or dark phase, the researchers said.
• Alcohol is the world’s most commonly consumed drug.
• And there is a greater need than ever to understand the biological mechanisms that drive our need to drink alcohol.
• We wanted to test what the role of the brain’s immune system might have on that reward and whether or not we could switch it off.

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Experiment:

• In the study the team switched off the impulse to drink alcohol.
• In addition,by giving mice a drug that blocks a specific response from the immune system in the brain.
• The researchers administered the drug (+)-Naltrexone, which is known to block the immune receptor Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in mice.
• The results showed a significant reduction in alcohol drinking behaviour by mice that had been given (+)-Naltrexone.
• Specifically at night when the reward for drug-related behaviour is usually at its greatest.

  These findings point to the need for further research to understand the implications for drinking behaviour in humans, the researchers noted.