Neuropsychologic deficits and the risk for alcoholism

The importance of genetic factors in alcoholism has prompted a search for trait or vulnerability markers of a predisposition toward this disorder. Responding to the diverse and at times persistent neuropsychologic impairments observed in alcoholics, several laboratories have documented possible neurocognitive deficits in young men with alcoholic biologic fathers. This paper begins with a review of this complex, and at times contradictory, literature and then presents original data comparing 24 sons of alcoholic fathers with 24 control subjects matched on demography and drinking histories. Among the present sample of students and working men aged 18 to 25 years, the sons of alcoholics demonstrated no significant levels of impairment on the Category Test, the Trail Making Test Part B, Body Sway, Word REcall, or the Missing Digit Test. Taken together with the literature, these negative findings call into question whether any specific array of neurocognitive or psychomotor test results will in the near future prove to be clinically relevant general markers of a risk for alcoholism.