Lilian Villarin

IWR-Heidelberg

ZI-Mannheim

Applied Analysis Group

Statistic Group

Psychopharmacology Department

The goal of my PhD is to predict alcoholism in mice at early stages of alcohol admission.

The definition of drinking patterns and association to later alcoholic addiction is of importance in the study of genetical conditions influencing addictive behaviors. What now takes several months of experiments to determine whether a mouse is developing alcoholism or not, could then take only several weeks of measurements.

My project is embedded in the NGFNplus Project “Genetics of Alcohol Addiction”, gathering information from several databases and laboratories, as well as scientist from different fields. Mice drinking time series will be recorded by specialists from ZI-Mannheim working within the same project.

For the resulting time series of alcohol consumption, several statistical parameters will be computed. Using the obtained parameters we will define the notion of a drinking pattern and establish the number and type of the observed pattern. The resulting types of drinking behavior can then be correlated with the state of the animal after a few months. In a further step, the drinking behavior will be considered as a dynamic process. A model will be developed for the time evolution of the alcohol consumption in the form of a dynamical system. The goal hereby is not only to be able to reproduce all observed drinking patterns, but also to provide a description for the change of the different drinking pattern over a long time course. The resulting model will then allow a prediction of future alcohol addiction, based on the drinking behavior in early stages of alcohol admission.