Mission Statement:

The Laboratory of Neurogenetics studies the genetic basis of alcoholism, a moderately to highly heritable disease. The overall aim is to understand the origins of alcoholism and thereby contribute to the development of new approaches to treatment and prevention and to the better targeting of treatments already available. To understand the actions of genes in behavior, this laboratory conducts gene x environment interaction studies, analyzes the role of genetic factors in response to drug treatment, and conducts primary linkage studies on alcoholism and other psychiatric diseases in order to identify genes responsible for the inheritance of alcoholism. We also study the genetic basis of other psychiatric diseases, such as addictions and affective disorders, whose neurobiologies partially overlap with alcoholism. We study intermediate phenotypes which assay the function of neurobiological systems that are integral to alcoholism. These neurobiologies include anxiety/stress response, executive cognitive function and behavioral control, and reward. Because our ultimate goals necessitate identification of functional genetic loci, this laboratory applies a variety of approaches to identify genetic variation, define molecular functionality and link genetic variation to intermediate phenotypes and complex behavior.

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