The Answer You Get Depends on the Question You Ask

C OMMENTARY The Answer You Get Depends on the Question You Ask Marc A. Schuckit T he article by King et al. (1) has many strengths and raises issues relevant to substance use disorders and psychiatry overall. The goal was to identify characteristics that con- tributed to future alcohol problems and heavy episodic drinking (i.e., binges) in 104 heavier drinking subjects aged 21 to 40 (mean age 25). Predictors of these outcomes included feelings of sedation, stimulation, and liking and wanting more alcohol after drinking and at a breath alcohol level (BrAC) of 80 mg/dL. Relationships between predictors and outcomes were analyzed using 1) general estimating equations with all 104 subjects, asking if each baseline characteristic predicted adverse outcomes; 2) trajectory groups (e.g., the 10 subjects with the most severe outcome who carried the greatest weight in this step); and 3) exploratory cluster analyses to identify subgroups of relation- ships between predictors and outcomes. Analyses were well done, follow-up rates were excellent, and the authors concluded that in this population alcohol stimulation and reward sensitivity best predicted alcohol problems and heavy episodic drinking. The process of framing questions, selecting study populations, choosing analytic strategies, and interpreting results includes common challenges when evaluating predictors (and possibly causes) for substance-related and psychiatric outcomes. Most symptoms and disorders in our ﬁelds are complex genetically inﬂuenced conditions where multiple sets of genes contribute to intermediate characteristics that increase or decrease the risk for the syndrome of interest (e.g., anxiety, depression, or substance use and related problems) (2). There is no perfect way to execute this type of research, and in light of the complexities, no single study can evaluate all components of a broad question. To place the article under discussion into perspective, it is important to remember that multiple intermediate characteristics impact on heavier drinking and alcohol problems at different stages of a person’s life (2,3). An individual’s response to alcohol is only one of several complex factors that contribute to the likelihood of drinking more or less per occasion and to the risks for alcohol problems. There are also multiple types of alcohol responses, including a low level of response (LR) likely to be seen at all aspects of the BrAC curve, the stimulating effects of this drug, and heart rate responses to an alcohol challenge, as discussed in our recent letter to the editor (4). The study of any risk factor for adverse alcohol outcomes requires evaluations as early in the drinking career as possible and before an alcohol use disorder (AUD) and associated physiologic and attitudinal changes have developed in the context of heavy drinking. For example, the impact of a low LR to alcohol has been evaluated in drinkers as young as age 12 using a retrospective questionnaire From the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, California. Address correspondence to Marc A. Schuckit, M.D., University of California, San Diego, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, 8950 Villa La Jolla Drive, Suite B-218, La Jolla, CA 92037; E-mail: mschuckit@ucsd.edu. Received Feb 25, 2014; revised and accepted Mar 18, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.03.018 regarding the drinks required for effects and at age 18 for challenges with nonbeverage alcohol (5), after obtaining the same type of informed consent as would be needed for a cocaine challenge or a liver biopsy. Our own work asks a different question than was posed by King et al. (1). We have focused on the issue relevant to clinicians and prevention researchers regarding who among a broad range of nonalcohol-dependent young drinkers are more and less likely to drink heavily in the future. Youth is important here because the onset of alcohol dependence is usually around age 23 to 25 years, and by age 30, ⬎80% of the risk for AUDs has passed. Recognizing the complexity of risk factors and the imperfections in any single type of measure, our alcohol challenges have included electro- encephalogram, hormone, motor performance, and functional magnetic resonance imaging measures as markers of a low LR [e.g., (2,4,6)]. To evaluate genetic contributors to LR and identify environmental mediators of its effects in large samples, for our 30- year follow-up of ⬎1500 subjects from 450 families and in ⬎1900 subjects followed from age 12 to 18 in the United Kingdom, we also developed a self-administered questionnaire regarding the number of drinks required for a range of effects [e.g., (7)]. The identiﬁcation of environmental partial mediators of the impact of the low LR on future drinking led to a prevention trial evaluating whether teaching 18-year-old drinkers about the risks associated with the low LR can help modify their drinking (8). The article by King et al. (1) is consistent with additional studies in demonstrating that some people may have a heigh- tened stimulating response to alcohol that is also associated with future heavy drinking (9). Enhanced positive sensations at rising BrAC levels and less negative sensations at falling levels has been called a differentiator model of the risk for heavy drinking (9,10). When our work with LR began in the 1970s, our subjective measure of response included several items that incorporate some stimulant-like feelings (e.g., feeling high, drunk, effects of alcohol) at 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and every half hour over 3 hours in our typical alcohol challenge paradigm. However, the same subjects who reported a low response to sedative-like effects (e.g., feeling sleepy, dizzy, clumsy) reported low LRs for the more general high, drunk, and drug effect items at eight rising, peak, and falling time points. In fact, these more generic intoxication feelings, rather than the sedative-like effects, most closely reﬂected the risk for future heavy drinking. If we had observed the same stimulant responses noted by King et al. (1), these scores would have been included in our evaluations of genetic and environmental mediators and in our trajectory analyses. However, no one can adequately evaluate everything and when our prospective work began in 1978, we did not include the more sensitive stimulating measures used by King et al. (1). Their work demonstrates that there is likely to be a subset of drinkers with exaggerated stimulatory responses to alcohol that contribute to their continued heavy drinking. This brings me back to the question of what exactly the King et al. (1) article found and how it might be interpreted. Perhaps the most salient issue is that the question I have been asking BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2014;75:754–755 & 2014 Society of Biological Psychiatry