There continues to be a great deal of progress in statistical methods for CNV detection. In tandem, there is growing excitement about the association between these CNVs and human behavior and the extent to which these intriguing variations in the human genome may contribute to that elusive “missing heritability” in complex behavioral phenotypes and psychiatric illness. While there has been some promise in studies of autism, and intellectual disabilities (Glessner et al., 2009; Pinto et al.), as well as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Lachman et al., 2007; Stefansson et al., 2008), research on CNVs in studies of addiction, particularly alcohol dependence, is lacking. In this study, we examine the CNVs for DSM-IV alcohol dependence in a large sample of European-American subjects.
