Brief report: cognitive control helps explain comorbidity between alcohol use disorder and internalizing disorders

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Neuroscience
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and internalizing problems like depression and anxiety frequently co-occur.
• Cognitive control is hypothesized to play a role in the etiology of these conditions.
• Previous research has not empirically tested cognitive control's role in explaining the comorbidity between AUD and internalizing disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether cognitive control explains the overlap between alcohol use disorder and internalizing problems.
• To examine the contributions of cognitive control and negative emotionality to the comorbidity of AUD and internalizing disorders.

Main Methods:

• 1,313 undergraduate students completed assessments of cognitive control, negative emotionality, and symptoms of AUD, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder.
• Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.
• The study examined variance specific to and shared by cognitive control and negative emotionality in explaining the overlap between AUD and internalizing problems.

Main Results:

• Symptoms of AUD and internalizing disorders were modestly correlated.
• Cognitive control variance significantly explained the correlation between AUD and both depression (19%) and generalized anxiety (18%).
• Variance common to cognitive control and negative emotionality explained a substantial portion of the correlation (depression: 24%; generalized anxiety: 31%). Negative emotionality alone also significantly contributed.
• After accounting for both factors, the residualized correlation between AUD and internalizing symptoms was not significant.

Conclusions:

• Cognitive control may be a key factor explaining the comorbidity between alcohol use disorder and internalizing disorders.
• Negative emotionality also significantly contributes to this overlap.
• Findings have implications for developing interventions for comorbid AUD and internalizing disorders.