Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Alcohol is a leading contributor to the worldwide burden of disease, and alcohol dependence is highly prevalent in Canada. A better understanding of early processes involved in the development of alcohol dependence is essential to combating the vast public health impact of alcohol. Impaired control over alcohol use (i.e., drinking more alcohol than intended) is among the earliest symptoms of alcohol dependence to develop, but the processes involved in impaired control are not well understood. This is due in part to limitations in methods that have been used to study impaired control over alcohol. This research will apply a new laboratory method of human alcohol self-administration to the study of impaired control over alcohol. This method uses intravenous alcohol administration, and allows participants to press a button to self-administer alcohol (up to a specified safety limit). This method has numerous advantages over methods that use oral alcohol administration, including better experimental control of factors that can influence the effects of alcohol. The current research seeks to adapt this method specifically to study impaired control over alcohol use, leading to a more comprehensive examination of processes that occur when individuals "lose control" over their drinking behaviour. This will facilitate examination of the links between impaired control and important predictors of alcohol dependence such as impulsivity and genetic factors. The results will highlight specific contributing factors (i.e., behavioural, personality, and genetic) that can be helpful for identifying individuals at-risk for impaired control over alcohol who may benefit from targeted interventions. Moreover, the novel method for assessing impaired control over alcohol that will result from this research may have important clinical applications as a tool for evaluating medications and behavioural interventions with respect to their impact on impaired control symptoms of alcohol dependence.