Jalen Cai

USC · alcohol research 2025

Studying Alcohol, the Liver, and the Brain

Hepatic steatosis, intake, and cognition in mice

Work on whether ethanol-induced fatty liver feeds back into how much alcohol mice choose to drink — and into how well they think afterwards.

Abstract published Alcohol researchHepatic steatosisCognition

The abstract

Ethanol-Induced Hepatic Steatosis May Contribute to Increases in Voluntary Alcohol Intake and Cognitive Deficits in Mice — published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research abstract proceedings.

The framing is a loop rather than a line: drinking damages the liver, and the damaged liver may make the drinking worse and the thinking harder.

Methods and results

Add the methods and results summary once cleared

How it connects

This is one of the threads that fed into the independent gut–brain project — alcohol metabolism kept showing up in both.

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