ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
GIRK3 gates activation of the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway by ethanol.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spatial transcriptomics reveals distinct cell type dynamics following opioid dependence in female mice with the common human μ-opioid receptor variant Oprm1 A118G.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Heavy adolescent drinking makes the adult brain more vulnerable to ethanol by permanently altering the age-dependent interplay between alcohol, GIRK channels and activin.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Regulation of input excitability in human and mouse parvalbumin interneurons by Kir potassium channels.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Synaptic Effects Induced by Alcohol.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Changes in the Properties of Ethanol-Sensitive Molecular Targets During Maturation and Aging.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
- Chronic ethanol exposure in mice evokes pre- and postsynaptic deficits in GABAergic transmission in ventral tegmental area GABA neurons.British journal of pharmacology · 2025Article
- A critical review of ethanol effects on neuronal firing: A metabolic perspective.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Review
- Influence of Inherited Seizure Susceptibility on Intermittent Voluntary Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol Withdrawal Seizures in Genetically Epilepsy-Prone Rats (GEPR-3s).Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Direct modulation of G protein-gated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK) channels.Frontiers in physiology · 2024Review
- Ethanol-Induced Suppression of G Protein-Gated Inwardly Rectifying KBiological psychiatry · 2023Article
- Modulation of neuronal excitability by binge alcohol drinking.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2023Review
- The Relevance of GIRK Channels in Heart Function.Membranes · 2022Review
- Review
- Neuronal G protein-gated KAmerican journal of physiology. Cell physiology · 2022Review
- Researching Mitigation of Alcohol Binge Drinking in Polydrug Abuse: KCNK13 and RASGRF2 Gene(s) Risk Polymorphisms Coupled with Genetic Addiction Risk Severity (GARS) Guiding Precision Pro-Dopamine Regulation.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- KCNK13 potassium channels in the ventral tegmental area of rats are important for excitation of ventral tegmental area neurons by ethanol.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Advances in Targeting GIRK Channels in Disease.Trends in pharmacological sciences · 2021Review
- Potassium Channels and Their Potential Roles in Substance Use Disorders.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Permeation mechanisms through the selectivity filter and the open helix bundle crossing gate of GIRK2.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2020Article
- Ethanol-induced conditioned place preference and aversion differentially alter plasticity in the bed nucleus of stria terminalis.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
G protein-gated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK) channels are critical regulators of neuronal excitability and can be directly activated by ethanol. Constitutive deletion of the GIRK3 subunit has minimal phenotypic consequences, except in response to drugs of abuse. Here we investigated how the GIRK3 subunit contributes to the cellular and behavioral effects of ethanol, as well as to voluntary ethanol consumption. We found that constitutive deletion of GIRK3 in knockout (KO) mice selectively increased ethanol binge-like drinking, without affecting ethanol metabolism, sensitivity to ethanol intoxication, or continuous-access drinking. Virally mediated expression of GIRK3 in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) reversed the phenotype of GIRK3 KO mice and further decreased the intake of their wild-type counterparts. In addition, GIRK3 KO mice showed a blunted response of the mesolimbic dopaminergic (DA) pathway to ethanol, as assessed by ethanol-induced excitation of VTA neurons and DA release in the nucleus accumbens. These findings support the notion that the subunit composition of VTA GIRK channels is a critical determinant of DA neuron sensitivity to drugs of abuse. Furthermore, our study reveals the behavioral impact of this cellular effect, whereby the level of GIRK3 expression in the VTA tunes ethanol intake under binge-type conditions: the more GIRK3, the less ethanol drinking.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.