Adult Children of Alcoholics: cognitive and psychomotor characteristics

Summary A comparison of individuals who report alcohol abuse in one or both parents (family history positive: FHP) with those who do not (family history negative: PHN) on a number of metabolic, behavioral, and mood measures before and after alcohol dosing revealed marginally lower cognitive abilities, on average, in the FHP group. Most of the other hypothesized differences between groups (e.g. alcohol metabolism; differential alcohol sensitivity; differential alcohol tolerance; mood) were not found, except in two‐ and three‐way interactions among gender, age, and FH. It seems evident that the search for biological markers of increased risk for future alcohol abuse will need to take account of gender and age, in addition to familial alcohol abuse.