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Researchers conducting a study at the University of Iowa hope to determine whether adolescents with inherited risk for alcoholism have different brain patterns and structure than a control group. The study will be conducted by psychiatry professor Daniel O’Leary, PhD, funded by a five year grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Scientists will use sophisticated MRI methods to test their theories. They will study how well the teens do in cognitive tasks, examining various factors associated with conduct disorder symptoms, which you are more likely to find in youth with higher genetic risk for alcohol abuse. They will also study the brain patterns of adolescents doing tasks that require self-control or earn a reward.
Genetic risk factors may include sex, with males being more likely to inherit risk factors, either hormonally or culturally. Studies have concluded that a person of either sex is more likely to inherit alcoholic tendencies from a parent of the same sex. Some studies have been trying to pinpoint specific genes that are markers for alcoholism risk.
Other studies have shown that factors such as drug use, pornography use, or even pain can change human brain patterns, so even if the scans do show a difference in the brain patterns, they will not be able to rule out other environmental factors. Do children of alcoholics receive proper health care? Are they covered by health insurance? Perhaps the stress of being a teenage child of an alcoholic is enough to bring about a change in the brain patterns. If that proves to be the case, they will need to research whether a course of mental health care will help to restore the original brain patterns.
Another factor in such a study, one that cannot be addressed in five years, is the question of age. If you could compare the brain scans of a child over the course of years, from birth to adulthood, you might be able to pinpoint whether brain patterns were caused by environmental factors or inherited.
