Differential shared genetic influences on anxiety with problematic alcohol use compared to alcohol consumption.

Anxiety disorders and alcohol use disorders are common psychiatric illnesses. Comorbidity of the two disorders can have a tremendous effect on treatment of one or both disorders, as well as an individual's social, economic, and physical well-being. We estimated genome-wide genetic correlations between anxiety and alcohol use traits using linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) and found strong and positive correlations of anxiety with problematic alcohol use (PAU), but not with most alcohol consumption (AC) measures. We observed strong, positive between-sex genetic correlations for all traits, but found suggestive evidence that the genetic correlation between alcohol use and anxiety might differ between males and females. Estimates of local genetic covariance demonstrated divergent genetic covariance profiles of PAU and AC with anxiety phenotypes and localized 12 specific genomic regions that likely contribute to both anxiety and alcohol use. Finally, partitioning the genetic covariance among functional annotations also identified the amygdala, caudate basal ganglia and frontal cortex as contributing significantly to positive genetic covariance between anxiety and PAU phenotypes. This study serves as a framework for an approach to be used in future analyses of the genetics of comorbid disorders.

Download Full-text

Examining the Attitudes of Non-Psychiatric Practicing Healthcare Workers Towards Patients With Alcohol Problems in General Hospital Setting

Substance Abuse Research and Treatment ◽

10.1177/11782218211065755 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 16 ◽

pp. 117822182110657

Author(s):

Ho Teck Tan ◽

Yit Shiang Lui ◽

Lai Huat Peh ◽

Rasaiah Munidasa Winslow ◽

Song Guo

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Use ◽

Hospital Setting ◽

Well Being ◽

Alcohol Problems ◽

Alcohol Intervention ◽

Screening And Brief Intervention ◽

Daily Work ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use ◽

Doctors And Nurses

Background and objectives: Problematic alcohol-use affect the physical and mental well-being of hospitalised individuals and may receive screening and brief-intervention during treatment. Non-psychiatric doctors and nurses might respond inadequately due to negative attitudes and beliefs. This study aimed to examine these attitudes of non-psychiatric workers in the medical and surgical wards. Methods: A total of 457 doctors and 1643 nurses were recruited from the medical, surgical and orthopaedic disciplines over a period of 4 months. Three questionnaires were administered: demographics, Alcohol & Alcohol-Problems Perceptions Questionnaire (AAPPQ) and Staff Perception of Alcohol Treatment Resources. Results: About 128 doctors and 785 nurses responded. Around 75.5% doctors and 51.9% nurses endorsed role-legitimacy in the AAPPQ. Both the doctor (86.7%) and nurse (77.6%) groups agreed on the importance to initiate intervention for patients with problematic alcohol-use in daily work. Both groups were sceptical and negative towards these patients endorsing low-level role-adequacy (41.2%), role-support (36.9%), motivation (36.5%), task-specific self-esteem (25.1) as well as work satisfaction (20.5%). Conclusion/discussion: Doctors and nurses demonstrated low levels of therapeutic commitments towards patients with problematic alcohol-use thereby necessitating the introduction of in-house programmes to educate, empower and emphasise the importance of therapeutic contact with patients for alcohol intervention. Scientific significance: The prompt identification and treatment of patients with alcohol problems are contingent on the workers’ attitudes towards them. This study’s results should spark a nation-wide interest to improve the training and recognition of such patients and providing adequate educational resources.

Download Full-text

Cessation and reduction in alcohol consumption and misuse after psychedelic use

Journal of Psychopharmacology ◽

10.1177/0269881119845793 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 33 (9) ◽

pp. 1088-1101 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Albert Garcia-Romeu ◽

Alan K Davis ◽

Fire Erowid ◽

Earth Erowid ◽

Roland R Griffiths ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Consumption ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Clinical Studies ◽

Online Survey ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

High Dose ◽

Clinical Settings ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

The Usa ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

Background:Meta-analysis of randomized studies using lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for alcohol use disorder (AUD) showed large, significant effects for LSD efficacy compared to control conditions. Clinical studies suggest potential anti-addiction effects of LSD and mechanistically-related classic psychedelics for alcohol and other substance use disorders.Aims:To supplement clinical studies, reports of psychedelic use in naturalistic settings can provide further data regarding potential effects of psychedelics on alcohol use.Methods:An anonymous online survey of individuals with prior AUD reporting cessation or reduction in alcohol use following psychedelic use in non-clinical settings.Results:343 respondents, mostly White (89%), males (78%), in the USA (60%) completed the survey. Participants reported seven years of problematic alcohol use on average before the psychedelic experience to which they attributed reduced alcohol consumption, with 72% meeting retrospective criteria for severe AUD. Most reported taking a moderate or high dose of LSD (38%) or psilocybin (36%), followed by significant reduction in alcohol consumption. After the psychedelic experience 83% no longer met AUD criteria. Participants rated their psychedelic experience as highly meaningful and insightful, with 28% endorsing psychedelic-associated changes in life priorities or values as facilitating reduced alcohol misuse. Greater psychedelic dose, insight, mystical-type effects, and personal meaning of experiences were associated with a greater reduction in alcohol consumption, controlling for prior alcohol consumption and related distress.Conclusions:Although results cannot demonstrate causality, they suggest that naturalistic psychedelic use may lead to cessation or reduction in problematic alcohol use, supporting further investigation of psychedelic-assisted treatment for AUD.

Download Full-text

Parsing Genetically Influenced Risk Pathways: Genetic Loci Impact Problematic Alcohol Use Via Externalizing and Specific Risk

10.1101/2021.07.20.21260861 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Peter B Barr ◽

Travis T Mallard ◽

Sandra Sanchez-Roige ◽

Holly E Poore ◽

Richard Karlsson Linner ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Substance Use ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Alcohol Misuse ◽

Genetic Correlations ◽

Multivariate Methods ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Specific Risk ◽

Polygenic Scores ◽

Psychiatric Outcomes ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

Importance: Characterizing whether genetic variants for psychiatric outcomes operate via specific versus general pathways provides more informative measures of genetic risk, and, potentially, allows us to design more targeted prevention and interventions. Objective: Employ multivariate methods to tease apart variants associated with problematic alcohol use through either general or specific pathways and compare results to standard univariate genetic analysis of problematic alcohol use. Design: We compared results from a univariate genome wide association study (GWAS) of problematic alcohol use to those from a previous multivariate GWAS of externalizing phenotypes. We identified genetic variants associated with problematic alcohol use through a broad liability to externalizing, and those that remain after removing shared variance with externalizing. We compared these results across SNP overlap, bioannotations, genetic correlations, and polygenic scores. Setting: We included GWAS summary statistics from existing GWAS, and two US based hold out samples: The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). Participants: Publicly available GWAS of externalizing behaviors and participants in Add Health (N=5,107) and COGA (N=7,483), limited to individuals of European ancestries. Exposure(s): N/A Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): Outcomes included problematic alcohol use (ALCP-O), shared risk for externalizing (EXT), and problematic alcohol use-specific risk (ALCP-S) for the GWASs; a preregistered list of 99 available phenotypes for genetic correlations; and substance use, substance use disorder criteria, and alcohol misuse in the polygenic score analyses. Results: The analysis differentiated SNPs operating through common versus specific risk pathways. While ALCP-O was associated with multiple phenotypes, ALCP-S was predominantly associated with alcohol use and other forms of psychopathology. Polygenic scores for ALCP-O were associated with a variety of other forms of substance use and substance use disorders, polygenic scores for ALCP-S were only associated with alcohol phenotypes. Polygenic scores for both ALCP-S and EXT show differential patterns of associations with alcohol misuse across development. Conclusions and Relevance: Focusing on the differential impacts of shared and specific risk can better characterize pathways of risk for alcohol use disorders. Multivariate methods can be a useful tool for studying many psychiatric conditions. Parsing risk pathways will become increasingly relevant as genetic information is incorporated into clinical practice for psychiatric outcomes.

Download Full-text

Cloninger's temperament dimensions and longitudinal alcohol use in early mid-life: A Northern Finland birth cohort 1966 study

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.134 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (S1) ◽

pp. S118-S118

Author(s):

D. Vladimirov ◽

S. Niemelä ◽

J. Auvinen ◽

M. Timonen ◽

S. Keinänen-Kiukaanniemi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Consumption ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Birth Cohort ◽

Heavy Drinking ◽

Novelty Seeking ◽

Multinomial Regression ◽

Time Points ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Competing Interest ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

BackgroundLongitudinal studies on how temperament is related to alcohol use in general population are scarce.ObjectivesFinding relations with temperament and problematic alcohol use using prospective birth cohort data.AimsTo investigate trends in self-reported alcohol consumption in adulthood.MethodsIn the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (n = 5247), alcohol use was studied with questionnaires at ages 31 and 46. Participants were classified into abstainers, bingers, heavy drinkers, steady drinkers, increasers or reducers based on the change in consumption (g/day). Cloninger's TCI-scores were calculated for each group. Multinomial regression analysis was conducted with TCI-scores as factors influencing the change in alcohol consumption.ResultsHigh novelty seeking was associated with increased consumption, binging and heavy drinking among both sexes at both time points (P < 0.01). Lower persistence was associated with increased consumption at both time points among men and among women at age 46. Baseline novelty seeking predicted both increasing (OR 1.1; 95% CI: 1.0–1.1) and reducing (1.1; 1.0–1.1) for men and for women also increasing (1.1; 1.0–1.1) and reducing (1.1; 1.0–1.1), but when adjusted with baseline alcohol use novelty seeking only predicted increasing for men (1.0; 1.0–1.1).ConclusionsHigh novelty seeking and low persistence are associated with problematic alcohol use among middle-aged Northern Finns. Gender differences in predictors existed: novelty seeking predicted increase only for men in the adjusted model. Temperament scores do not seem to affect strongly changes in alcohol use.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Download Full-text

Evidence of shared genetic influences underlying schizophrenia and alcohol use disorder, but not alcohol consumption

10.1101/2020.10.27.20220186 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Emma C. Johnson ◽

Manav Kapoor ◽

Alexander S. Hatoum ◽

Hang Zhou ◽

Renato Polimanti ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Consumption ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Genetic Variants ◽

Alcohol Use Disorder ◽

Association Studies ◽

Genetic Correlations ◽

Genome Wide Association Studies ◽

Genetic Covariance ◽

Genome Wide ◽

Brain Tissues

AbstractBackgroundAlcohol use disorder (AUD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) frequently co-occur, and recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified significant genetic correlations between them. In parallel, mounting evidence from GWAS suggests that alcohol consumption is only weakly genetically correlated with SCZ, but this has not yet been systematically investigated.MethodsWe used the largest published GWAS for AUD (total cases = 77,822) and SCZ (total cases = 46,827) to systematically identify genetic variants that influence both disorders (in either the same or opposite direction of effect) as well as disorder-specific loci, and contrast our findings with GWAS data for drinks per week (DPW; N = 537,349) as a measure of alcohol consumption.ResultsWe identified 55 independent genome-wide significant SNPs with the same direction of effect on AUD and SCZ, 9 with robust opposite effects, and 99 with disorder-specific effects. We also found evidence for 12 genes whose pleiotropic associations with AUD and SCZ are consistent with mediation via gene expression in the prefrontal cortex. The genetic covariance between AUD and SCZ was concentrated in genomic regions functional in brain tissues (p = 0.001). The genetic correlation between DPW and SCZ (rg = 0.102, SE = 0.022) was significantly lower than that for AUD and SCZ (rg = 0.392, SE = 0.029; p-value of the difference = 9.3e-18), and the genetic covariance between DPW and SCZ was not enriched for any meaningful tissue-specific categories.ConclusionsOur findings provide a detailed view of genetic loci that influence risk of both AUD and SCZ, suggest that biological commonalities underlying genetic variants with an effect on both disorders are manifested in brain tissues, and provide further evidence that SCZ shares meaningful genetic overlap with AUD and not merely alcohol consumption.

Download Full-text

Detection of Problematic Substance Use in the Child Welfare System: A Comparison of Self-Report and Caseworker Report

Child Maltreatment ◽

10.1177/1077559518815613 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 152-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kristen D. Seay

Keyword(s):

Substance Use ◽

Child Welfare ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Drug Use ◽

Well Being ◽

National Sample ◽

Self Report ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Problematic Drug ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

Using a national sample of American families investigated for child maltreatment, this article compares parental self-report on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and Drug Abuse Screening Test measures to caseworker report of problematic alcohol and drug use at investigation. Data in this article are from child welfare caseworkers and a subset of parents surveyed in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II—primary caregivers (most often the biological mother) whose child remained in the home following investigation ( n = 4,009). Caseworkers identified problematic alcohol use in only 17.7% of the parents who self-reported problematic alcohol use and problematic drug use in 37.6% of the parents who self-reported problematic drug use. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of problematic alcohol use were 21.5% and 94.8%, respectively, and 65.3% and 83.7% for problematic drug use, respectively. After controlling for the other variables in the model, an allegation of substance use reduced the odds of caseworker detection of problematic alcohol use being consistent with parent self-report (odds ratio [ OR] = 0.45, p < .01) and the odds of caseworker detection of problematic drug use being consistent with parent self-report ( OR = 0.13, p < .001).

Download Full-text

The Modifying Effect of Alcohol on Formation of a Hostile Position in Patients with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Health and Ecology Issues ◽

10.51523/2708-6011.2018-15-4-9 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 48-52

Author(s):

N. V. Hmara

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Consumption ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Risk Level ◽

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Schizophrenia Spectrum ◽

Modifying Effect ◽

Spectrum Disorders ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

Objective: to study the effect of alcohol on formation of a hostile position in patients suffering from schizophrenia. Material and methods. A comparative, cross-sectional, one-stage study of persons suffering from schizophrenia up to 5 years over 2015-2017 has been performed. The following evaluation methods were used: hostile attributive style - the AIHQ scale (D. R. Combs et аl., 2007), screening for alcohol use - the ASSIST scale (R. Humeniuk et al., 2008), severity of psychopathological symptoms - the PANSS scale (S. Kay, L. Opler, 1986). Results. The group with a low «risk level» of problematic alcohol use revealed the lowest indices by the PANSS «Paranoid Militancy» and «PANSS-Hostility» subscales. The comparison of psychometric parameters by the AIHQ Scale among persons suffering from schizophrenia has revealed that an increase in the amount and frequency of alcohol consumption leads to an increase of indices of anger and accusations in deliberate situations. Conclusion. The obtained data make it possible to assume presence of the modifying effect of quantitative parameters of alcohol use on formation of a hostile position in persons suffering from schizophrenia.

Download Full-text

Supplemental Material for Predicting Problematic Alcohol Use With the DSM–5 Alternative Model of Personality Pathology

Personality Disorders Theory Research and Treatment ◽

10.1037/per0000131.supp ◽

2015 ◽

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Use ◽

Alternative Model ◽

Personality Pathology ◽

Dsm 5 ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

Download Full-text

A Developmental Perspective on the Genetic Basis of Alcohol Use Disorder

10.1093/oso/9780190676001.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Elisa M. Trucco ◽

Gabriel L. Schlomer ◽

Brian M. Hicks

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Use ◽

Alcohol Use Disorder ◽

Developmental Perspective ◽

Relative Contribution ◽

Intermediate Phenotypes ◽

Problematic Alcohol ◽

Age Related ◽

Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽

Problematic Alcohol Use

Approximately 48–66% of the variation in alcohol use disorders is heritable. This chapter provides an overview of the genetic influences that contribute to alcohol use disorder within a developmental perspective. Namely, risk for problematic alcohol use is framed as a function of age-related changes in the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors and an end state of developmental processes. This chapter discusses the role of development in the association between genes and the environment on risk for alcohol use disorder. Designs used to identify genetic factors relevant to problematic alcohol use are discussed. Studies examining developmental pathways to alcohol use disorder with a focus on endophenotypes and intermediate phenotypes are reviewed. Finally, areas for further investigation are offered.

Download Full-text