For the most part, FHP women showed a similar subjective response following alcohol administration compared to FHN women. For instance, alcohol produced similar increases in positive subjective effects in FHP and FHN women, and these ratings were higher during the luteal phase. These results contrast to some extent with our previous study (Evans and Levin, 2003) showing that FHP women tended to have higher ratings of Good Drug Effect and Drug Liking than FHN women in response to alcohol. Unfortunately, other studies comparing FHP and FHN women typically have not incorporated subjective measures correlated with abuse liability (Eng et al., 2005; Schuckit et al., 2000). Thus, the reason for the inconsistent findings between our two studies is unclear, but could be due to the larger sample size in the present study or the lack of menstrual cycle phase information in our previous study (Evans and Levin, 2003).
