Reducing a protein in neurons and removing it throughout an animal are different experiments. In a study of alcohol vapor exposure in fruit flies, the two interventions yielded different results for the ability to develop rapid tolerance.
The researchers used time to sedation as their behavioral endpoint. An increase in time to sedation on repeat ethanol exposure was evidence of rapid tolerance in that assay. Adult male flies with neuron-specific knockdown of the fly translocator protein, dTSPO, became sedated more readily but still developed tolerance. Whole-animal loss of dTSPO inhibited tolerance in male flies. Female flies did not show the same pattern.
Specify the sex of the flies, the scope of the intervention, and whether the result concerns initial sensitivity or a change between exposures. The contrast is evidence that the two interventions behaved differently in this model. The experiment did not establish which additional cells account for the difference or how the finding applies to human alcohol tolerance.
Lin and colleagues, PLOS Genetics (2015). Journal article ยท Full text.