Hussain Sahir, Day Darren, Ellenbroek Bart
Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2025;75:117-147. doi: 10.1007/7854_2025_601.
Alcohol is the most harmful drug of abuse, making alcoholism a major economic and public health crisis. Unsurprisingly, this has led to the majority of the neurobiological research on alcohol focusing on its direct effects on an individual, including those affected by foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). However, research has shown that heavy paternal drinking predicts earlier and heavier adolescent drinking in the offspring, accompanied by other behavioural and molecular changes. While alcohol use disorder (AUD) is highly heritable, research on genetic variants alone does not sufficiently account for AUD risk and the FASDs-like symptoms seen in offspring of alcoholic fathers. Recently, there has been an increase in appreciation of the importance of epigenetic mechanisms of inheritance, which transfer changes due to parental experiences through the germline. This chapter aims to present an overview of the current knowledge on the inter- and transgenerational impacts of preconceptual paternal alcohol consumption (PPAC), the outcomes seen across generations and the mechanisms by which these changes may be passed down generations.
酒精是滥用最有害的药物，酗酒成为一个重大的经济和公共卫生危机。不出所料，这导致大多数关于酒精的神经生物学研究聚焦于其对个体的直接影响，包括那些受胎儿酒精谱系障碍（FASDs）影响的个体。然而，研究表明，父亲大量饮酒预示着后代青少年饮酒更早且更严重，同时伴有其他行为和分子变化。虽然酒精使用障碍（AUD）具有高度遗传性，但仅对基因变异的研究并不能充分解释AUD风险以及在酗酒父亲的后代中出现的类似FASDs的症状。最近，人们越来越认识到表观遗传遗传机制的重要性，这种机制通过种系传递因父母经历而产生的变化。本章旨在概述当前关于孕前父亲酒精消费（PPAC）的代际和跨代影响、各代出现的结果以及这些变化可能代代相传的机制的知识。
