Alcohol use disorder affects tens of millions of people globally, resulting in massive economic costs and severe public health consequences. The chronic condition is defined by an inability to control drinking habits and the emergence of severe negative emotional states when the substance is removed. While several medications are approved to treat the disorder, they only work for a fraction of patients. In a recent study, researchers found that genetic markers related to a specific brain receptor predict the severity of alcohol dependence in rodents, and that administrating the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin reduces withdrawal-driven drinking. The study was published in the journal Neuropharmacology. Current pharmaceutical treatments for alcohol use disorder often fail to provide lasting relief because patients possess wide biological and genetic diversity. A chemical intervention that successfully curbs drinking in one person might produce side effects or show no measurable effect in another. For psychiatric treatments to improve, the medical field must adopt a precision medicine model that accounts for these deeply ingrained individual differences. A collaborative team of scientists, led by Paola …