Genetic and neural correlates of stress-related psychiatric disorders and alcoholism

The genetic and neural substrates underlying the comorbidity between stress-related psychiatric disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety disorders) and alcoholism remain poorly understood. I will show that polygenic risk for stress-related internalizing disorders is shared with risk for alcohol dependence (N  = 2773 as well as ongoing PGC work). Further, I will present evidence from a large ongoing neuroimaging study of college students (N = 1332) that reward-related ventral striatum (VS) function has a quadratic relationship with problematic alcohol use wherein both relatively low and high VS react ivity is associated with risk.
Source: Alcohol - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: research