Maximum Drinks, Alcoholism and Psychopathology Risk

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goals of this proposal are twofold: 1) to develop a programmatic line of research aimed at shedding light on the development of alcohol-related problems in adolescence and into adulthood using an intermediate phenotype maximum 24-hr alcohol consumption that has shown considerable promise as an indicator of risk in preliminary studies; and 2) to augment the applicant's training in developmental psychology with additional training in psychopathology, statistical methods for longitudinal data analysis, neuroscience, genetics (behavioral genetics, genetic epidemiology, and other quantitative methods), and advanced methods of event-related potential and magnetic resonance imaging analysis of brain structure and dynamics. The proposed research plan will build on findings that maximum consumption appears to relate more directly to the mechanisms conferring risk for SUDs than a psychiatric diagnosis of alcohol dependence and will use a developmentally and genetically-informed, multimethod approach to 1) evaluate the construct validity of the maximum consumption phenotype, 2) describe developmental trajectories among adolescent youth in relation to substance abuse risk and 3) to characterize neural dynamics among high-risk adolescents. The training activities will better prepare the applicant to conduct the proposed research, and the award would provide the freedom to pursue systematic research on this important phenotype. Together these will allow the applicant to pursue his ultimate goal as an independent researcher investigating neural processes associated with externalizing disorders and substance abuse. In addition, this research is likely to yield theoretically and clinically useful findings. It will extend previous research on electrophysiological correlates of substance abuse risk and ultimately holds significant promise for intervention efforts with high-risk individuals.