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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
Examining Alcohol Dependence And Its Correlates From A Genetically Informative Perspective, Laura Hack
Examining Alcohol Dependence And Its Correlates From A Genetically Informative Perspective, Laura Hack
Theses and Dissertations
Alcohol dependence (AD) is a serious and common public health problem that contributes to great societal, medical, and legal costs. It has taken work from multiple disciplines, including developmental psychology, genetic epidemiology, and molecular genetics, to achieve our current understanding of environmental and genetic risk factors for AD as well as its variable developmental trajectories. Nevertheless, there is still much to be learned in order to improve treatment outcomes. One approach to augmenting our understanding of this disorder is through genetically informative study designs that either examine risk in aggregate or assess specific susceptibility variants. In this dissertation, we utilize …
Elucidating Genetic And Environmental Influences On Alcohol-Related Phenotypes, Jacquelyn Meyers
Elucidating Genetic And Environmental Influences On Alcohol-Related Phenotypes, Jacquelyn Meyers
Theses and Dissertations
Decades of work has led researchers to believe that risk for complex behavioral phenotypes, such as alcohol use disorders, is likely influenced by multiple genes of small effect acting in conjunction with each other and the environment. Currently, the field of psychiatric genetics is developing methodologies for the identification of genetic risk variants that predispose individuals to the development of complex behavioral disorders. Several challenges related to the complex and polygenic nature of these phenotypes, must be considered. This dissertation study attempts to address these important challenges in the context of alcohol use disorders and related phenotypes. A rich twin …