Why does pre-natal exposure to alcohol seem to weigh more heavily on some of the children we have adopted from Russia than others? A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison may hold the key.

According to findings published Friday in Biological Psychiatry, the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, children who carry a certain gene variant may be more likely than others to suffer the ill effects of pre-natal alcohol exposure. According to a press release from the university, this is the first evidence of a genetic risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

And, in the eyes of the university professor who lead the study, it opens the door to a new way of helping children whose lives have been altered by alcohol.

"The big concern used to be the link between fetal alcohol exposure and mental retardation, but today there is increased concern over behavioral problems in these children," said Mary Schneider, a professor of kinesiology and psychology, in a prepared statement. "If this genetic marker could provide a way of recognizing the most vulnerable fetal alcohol-exposed children early in life, perhaps we could help them to live more successful and satisfying lives."

Schneider and several other professors at the University of Wisconsin worked with researchers at the University of Toronto and the National Institutes of Health on the study. They investigated two forms of a gene called the serotonin transporter gene promoter, which according to the university's press release, helps regulate the brain chemical serotonin. Rhesus monkeys with the short form of the gene were found to be more at risk.

Mother monkeys were given the equivalent of two alcoholic beverages five times a week during breeding and pregnancy. When the baby monkeys were born, the researchers measured their irritability and reaction to stress, and tested them to see whether they have the short or long form of the serotonin transporter gene promoter. The researchers found the monkeys who had the short form and whose mothers consumed alcohol were more irritable and reactive to stress than both monkeys that weren't exposed to alcohol and those whose mothers were given alcohol but had the gene's long form.

"If a baby is very irritable and stress reactive, one of the things this can interfere with is the caregiver-infant interaction," Schneider said in the press release. "In real life, negative events tend to cluster. So if there's alcohol in the environment, there may also be stress. And then if you have an irritable baby, this all could have cascading effects on the child's psychological development."

The study is intriguing; let's hope the researchers push it ahead.

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