Consistent with our hypothesis and prior work, we found significant indirect effect of alc-GPS on alcohol use via sensation seeking, suggesting sensation seeking as a promising intermediate phenotype for understanding the mechanisms of genetic influences on alcohol use outcomes. Prior research on the role of sensation seeking in mediating genetic risk has focused on adolescents and emerging adults (Li et al., 2018; Ksinan et al., 2019). Our findings extend the literature to show that this pathway of risk and the role of sensation seeking are similar in adulthood, spanning across emerging adulthood to middle adulthood, despite the decline in levels of sensation seeking across adulthood. This supports the promise of using sensation seeking to identify at-risk individuals across developmental stages for alcohol use intervention programs (Sargent et al., 2010).
