Adolescent Substance Use: Genetic Predisposition and Cultural Transmission

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA

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Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed postdoctoral fellowship has two objectives, both of which build upon my prior training in developmental psychology. The first objective is to expand my training on the role of parents in adolescent behavior to the area of substance use, studying how parent-related risk and protective factors are involved in the development of alcohol use behaviors during adolescence. The second objective is to gain expertise in behavior genetics, in order to study the role of parents in relation to adolescent alcohol use and problem drinking behaviors within the context of genetically informative designs. Specifically, I plan to examine the underlying nature of associations between (a) parents' problem drinking behaviors, (b) parenting practices, and (c) the development of alcohol-related behaviors in their adolescent offspring by using mediation modeling to examine potentially intervening individual and co-occuring (i.e., multiple mediation models) parenting practices. Moreover, despite a considerable body of evidence demonstrating associations between parental alcohol-related behaviors, parenting, and the development of alcohol-related behaviors in adolescents, most of this research has been conducted outside of the context of genetically informative designs. Thus, using biometrical twin models, I will assess the degree to which variation in parenting behaviors can be attributed to genetic predispositions and/or proximal environmental influences. Furthermore, bivariate Cholesky models will be used to assess the degree to which genetic and environmental sources of variation are shared between adolescents' perceptions of parenting and their own alcohol-related behaviors. Data for this project will be drawn from a longitudinal, population-based epidemiological study of adolescent behavior in approximately 5500 Finnish twins - FinnTwin12 (FT12). The design of this study extends the traditional twin design by incorporating specific measures of parenting (via individual behaviors and multidimensional parenting profiles) and parental problem drinking behaviors in an effort to disentangle the effects of parents' environmental and genetic contributions to the transmission of adolescent alcohol-related behaviors. Broadly speaking, this project will extend our existing understanding of the intergenerational transmission of alcohol use and problem drinking behaviors by focusing more holistically on a dynamic system of parental influences - both environmental and biological - during a developmental period known for the emergence of potentially deleterious alcohol use behaviors. In addition to advancing theory on the etiology of alcohol use behaviors, this work will serve the public interest through informing developmentally appropriate prevention and intervention strategies. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]