COGA phenotypes and linkages on chromosome 2

An initial linkage analysis of the alcoholism phenotype as defined by DSM-III-R criteria and alcoholism defined by DSM-IV criteria showed many, sometimes striking, inconsistencies. These inconsistencies are greatly reduced by making the definition of alcoholism more specific. We defined new phenotypes combining the alcoholism definitions and the latent variables, defining an individual as affected if that individual is alcoholic under one of the definitions (either DSM-III-R or DSM-IV), and indicated having a symptom defined by one of the latent variables. This was done for each of the two alcoholism definitions and five latent variables, selected from a canonical discriminant analyses indicating they formed significant groupings using the electrophysiological variables. We found that linkage analyses utilizing these latent variables were much more robust and consistent than the linkage results based on DSM-III-R or DSM-IV criteria for definition of alcoholism. We also performed linkage analyses on two first principal components derived phenotypes, one derived from the electrophysiological variables, and the other derived from the latent variables. A region on chromosome 2 at 250 cM was found to be linked to both of these derived phenotypes. Further examination of the SNPs in this region identified several haplotypes strongly associated with these derived phenotypes.