Genetic architecture of reciprocal social behavior in toddlers: Implications for heterogeneity in the early origins of autism spectrum disorder.

Impairment in reciprocal social behavior (RSB), an essential component of early social competence, clinically defines autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the behavioral and genetic architecture of RSB in toddlerhood, when ASD first emerges, has not been fully characterized. We analyzed data from a quantitative video-referenced rating of RSB (vrRSB) in two toddler samples: a community-based volunteer research registry (n = 1,563) and an ethnically diverse, longitudinal twin sample ascertained from two state birth registries (n = 714).

Transitions in alcohol use over time: a survival analysis.

Background: The current study examined the predictors of the onset of alcohol use as well as predictors of remission and relapse, both from heavy drinking and from alcohol dependence. Similarities and differences in both clinical and psychosocial predictors across the transitions were examined.

Methods: A sample of men from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry (N = 1769) completed an assessment of lifetime drinking history, which allowed age markers for starting and stopping different drinking patterns.

Customizing a clinical app to reduce hazardous drinking among veterans in primary care.

Within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), 15-30% of patients seen in primary care are identified as hazardous drinkers, yet the vast majority of these patients receive no intervention. Time constraints on providers and patient-level barriers to in-person treatment contribute to this problem. The scientific literature provides a compelling case that mobile-based interventions can reduce hazardous drinking and underscores the role of peer support in behavioral change.

Residual Effects: Young Adult Diagnostic Drinking Predicts Late-Life Health Outcomes.

Objective: This study examined the residual effects of young adult diagnostic drinking on health outcomes four decades later in late life. Results were differentiated by drinking status during midlife.

Method: A subsample of Vietnam Era Twin Registry members, all of whom had a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol dependence, was grouped according to life span drinking patterns as assessed by the Lifetime Drinking History interview in 2001.

Differences between White and Black young women in the relationship between religious service attendance and alcohol involvement.

Background And Objectives: We examined the associations of religious attendance during childhood (C-RA) and adulthood (A-RA) with alcohol involvement (ever drinking, timing of first alcohol use, and alcohol use disorder [AUD]) in White and Black female twins. As genetic and environmental factors influence religious attendance and alcohol involvement, we examined the extent to which they contribute to their association.

Methods: Data on 3,234 White and 553 Black female twins (18-29 years) from the Missouri Adolescent Female twin Study.

Parental Separation and Offspring Alcohol Involvement: Findings from Offspring of Alcoholic and Drug Dependent Twin Fathers.

Background: We examined associations between parental separation during childhood and offspring alcohol involvement, adjusting for genetic and environmental risks specific to parental alcohol (AD) and cannabis/other illicit drug dependence (DD).

Methods: The sample consisted of 1,828 offspring of male twins from the Vietnam Era Twin (VET) Registry, who completed a telephone diagnostic interview. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were conducted predicting onset of first use, transition from first use to first AD symptom, and transition from first use to AD diagnosis from paternal and avuncular AD and DD history, parental separation, and offspring and family background characteristics.

Religion/spirituality, risk, and the development of alcohol dependence in female twins.

The contention that Religion/Spirituality (R/S) influences the development of alcohol dependence (AD) is increasingly supported, but risk factors have not been adequately examined together with protective R/S factors so as to determine the nature and relative strength of these domains at different stages in the development of alcoholism. Secondary data analysis of a sample of 4,002 young adult female twins used conditional Cox proportional hazards survival models to examine three distinct stages in the development of alcoholism: years to initiation of drinking, years from first drink to at-risk drinking, and years from at-risk drinking to AD. Risk and protective factors from models of alcoholism etiology and studies of R/S dimensionality were modeled simultaneously as predictors of each discrete stage and compared.

Psychiatric morbidity is linked to problem drinking in midlife among alcohol-dependent men: a co-twin control study.

Objective: Prior research on predictors of problem drinking has been limited because of an inability to attribute an unambiguous environmental explanation to observed findings. Using a prospective co-twin control design, we examined the extent to which a history of psychiatric symptoms exerts an environmental influence on problem drinking in midlife that is unconfounded by genetic underpinnings.

Method: Participants were 367 complete male twin pairs (208 monozygotic, 159 dizygotic) from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry who were assessed in midlife as part of the Family Twin Study (Mage = 51.

Parent, sibling and peer associations with subtypes of psychiatric and substance use disorder comorbidity in offspring.

Background: Parental substance use disorder (SUD) is associated with a range of negative offspring outcomes and psychopathology, but the clustering of these outcomes into subtypes has seldom been examined, nor have the familial and environmental contexts of these subtypes been reported. The present study examines the clustering of offspring lifetime substance use and psychiatric disorders into subtypes and characterizes them in terms of familial and non-familial influences using an offspring-of-twins design.

Method: Telephone-administered diagnostic interviews were used to collect data on psychiatric disorders and SUD from 488 twin fathers, 420 biological mothers and 831 offspring.

Associations of alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and drug use/dependence with educational attainment: evidence from cotwin-control analyses.

Background: Although substance use is associated with reduced educational attainment, this association may be owing to common risk factors such as socioeconomic disadvantage. We tested whether alcohol, nicotine, and illicit drug use and dependence were associated with lifetime educational attainment after controlling for familial background characteristics.

Methods: Data were from a 1987 questionnaire and a 1992 telephone diagnostic interview of 6,242 male twins (n = 3,121 pairs; mean age = 41.

Alcohol milestones, risk factors, and religion/spirituality in young adult women.

Objective: The alcoholism research literature has long reported a significant, reliable, and inverse association between alcohol use disorders and religion/spirituality (R/S), and this is also evident in the period of highest risk--adolescence and young adulthood. In the treatment area, both clinical and mutual-help programs for alcohol use disorders often include a spiritual component, and outcome studies validate the efficacy of such programs. Even so, the alcoholism-R/S relationship is little understood.

Alcoholism, personality, and religion/spirituality: an integrative review.

A review of the literature on the relationships between alcoholism, personality, and religion identified patterns that may help explain the inverse association between alcoholism and religion/spirituality (R/S). Personality plays a central role in two etiological models of alcoholism. The personality traits of high behavioral undercontrol (low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness) and high negative affect (high Neuroticism) are both significantly related to higher alcohol use.

Parent, sibling and peer influences on smoking initiation, regular smoking and nicotine dependence. Results from a genetically informative design.

We sought to determine whether parenting, sibling and peer influences are associated with offspring ever smoking, regular smoking and nicotine dependence (ND) after controlling for familial factors. We used a twin-family design and data from structured diagnostic surveys of 1919 biological offspring (ages 12-32 years), 1107 twin fathers, and 1023 mothers. Offspring were classified into one of four familial risk groups based on twin fathers' and their co-twins' history of DSM-III-R nicotine dependence.

Drinking course through midlife based on diagnostic versus quantity-frequency indices.

Background: Prior efforts to examine the course of drinking from onset to midlife have been limited to analyses of year-to-year changes in alcohol dependence (AD). The current investigation sought to examine the course of drinking over this time frame using consumption-based measures of drinking and evaluate the degree of comparability in trajectories estimated from diagnostic and quantity-frequency data.

Methods: Participants included 420 men with a lifetime history of AD who were drawn from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry and administered the Lifetime Drinking History, which provided person-year (retrospective) data on patterns of consumption and diagnostic symptoms from drinking onset to participants' current age.

Childhood religious affiliation and alcohol use and abuse across the lifespan in alcohol-dependent men.

The current study examined the relationship between childhood religious affiliation and alcohol use across the life span. A sample of 931 men (average age of 51) from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, which includes an overrepresentation of alcohol-dependent men, completed the Lifetime Drinking History interview, which assessed drinking across the life span. Childhood religious affiliation was obtained from the men's spouse/partner.

Patterns of use, sequence of onsets and correlates of tobacco and cannabis.

Background: While most individuals initiate their use of tobacco prior to onset of cannabis use, recent reports have identified a smaller subset of youth who report onset of cannabis use prior to tobacco use. In this study, we characterize patterns of cannabis and tobacco use (tobacco but not cannabis, cannabis but not tobacco or both) and compare the factors associated with onset of tobacco before cannabis and cannabis before tobacco.

Methods: Data on 1812 offspring aged 12-32 years, drawn from two related offspring of Vietnam Era twin studies, were used.

A latent class analysis of DSM-IV and Fagerström (FTND) criteria for nicotine dependence.

Background: Nicotine dependence is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Two predominant classification systems, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) and Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), have been used to measure liability to nicotine dependence, yet few studies have attempted to simultaneously examine both sets of criteria.

Methods: Using a sample of 624 regular smoking individuals who are offspring of Vietnam Era Twin fathers ascertained for an offspring of twin study, we applied latent class analysis to the 7 DSM-IV and the 6 FTND criteria to classify individuals by their nicotine dependence symptom profiles.

Contribution of parental psychopathology to offspring smoking and nicotine dependence in a genetically informative design.

Objective: It is not known if parental psychiatric disorders have an independent effect on offspring smoking after controlling for genetic and environmental vulnerability to nicotine dependence. We tested if parental alcohol, drug, or conduct disorders; antisocial personality disorder; depression; and anxiety disorders remained significant predictors of offspring smoking initiation, regular smoking, and nicotine dependence before and after adjusting for genetic and environmental risk for nicotine dependence.

Method: Data were obtained via semi-structured interviews with 1,107 twin fathers, 1,919 offspring between the ages of 12 and 32, and 1,023 mothers.

Effect of paternal alcohol and drug dependence on offspring conduct disorder: gene-environment interplay.

Objective: Not only are substance-use disorders and externalizing disorders frequently comorbid, they often co-occur in families across generations. The current study examined the role of genetic and environmental influences in the relationship between paternal histories of drug dependence or alcohol dependence and offspring conduct disorder using an offspring-of-twins design.

Method: Participants were male twins (n = 1,774) from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, their offspring (n = 1,917), and mothers of the offspring (n = 1,202).

Testing the equal environments assumption in the Children of Twins design.

In a Children of Twins (COT) design, the environmental and genetic risk of a child is, in part, dependent upon the status of the father and the father's cotwin. The logic of the COT method breaks down if the zygosity of the twin pair is confounded with the environment provided to the child (a version of the Equal Environment Assumption, EEA). If MZ twin fathers see each other more often than DZ twin fathers, and a child's uncle is the affected twin in discordant pairs, this could increase the environmental risk of children of MZ over that of DZ discordant twins.

The effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy on offspring outcomes.

Objective: To evaluate the possible association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring outcomes of birth weight, pre-term birth, remediation, low scholastic achievement, regular smoking, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct problems while controlling for similar behaviors in parents.

Methods: Using telephone interviews, data were collected, in 2001 and 2004, as a part of two United States offspring-of-twins projects. Fathers, who were twins participating in the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, their female spouse and their offspring were interviewed - information on 1,342 unique pregnancies in mothers with a history of regular smoking was utilized for these analyses.

Mediation of family alcoholism risk by religious affiliation types.

Objective: Religious affiliation is inversely associated with alcohol dependence (AD). Our previous findings indicated that when a religious affiliation differentiated itself from cultural norms, then high-risk adolescents (those having parents with alcoholism history) raised with these affiliations exhibited fewer AD symptoms compared with adolescents of other religious affiliations and nonreligious adolescents. The first of two studies reported here provides a needed replication of our previous findings for childhood religious affiliation using a different sample, and the second study extends examination to current religious affiliation.

Drinking trajectories from adolescence to the fifties among alcohol-dependent men.

Objective: Although it has been recognized that the course of alcoholism may differ across individuals, little work has characterized drinking trajectories from drinking onset to midlife.

Method: The current study examined trajectories of alcohol dependence from adolescence to the mid-50s in a sample of 420 men with a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol dependence. Men from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry were given the Lifetime Drinking History, which assesses the patterns of alcohol consumption and diagnostic symptoms for self-defined drinking phases.

Subjective effects to cannabis are associated with use, abuse and dependence after adjusting for genetic and environmental influences.

Background: Previous reports in adults have suggested that the effects experienced after cannabis use can be described in terms of positive and negative subtypes that are heritable and are associated with abuse and dependence. This study extends existing research by inclusion of adolescents and young adults in an offspring of twins design which makes it possible to take into account genetic and environmental risks for substance use disorder.

Methods: Data were collected from 725 twin members of the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, 839 of their 12-32 year old biological offspring and 427 mothers.

Validity of the lifetime drinking history: a comparison of retrospective and prospective quantity-frequency measures.

Objective: The Lifetime Drinking History (LDH) has been used to examine alcohol use throughout the life span. Given its retrospective nature, it is important to examine the validity of the assessment.

Method: Building on previous work establishing the reliability and validity of the LDH, the current study examined a sample of 1,295 men in the Vietnam Era Twin Registry.