Limitations notwithstanding, the recent literature on the pharmacogenetics of naltrexone provides an example of how endophenotype-driven approaches may be useful tools for advancing the knowledge of alcoholism etiology, neurobiology, and ultimately, treatment efficacy and mechanisms. Translational approaches such as these have the potential to inform clinical practice by identifying individuals who are more likely to benefit from a given pharmacotherapy on the basis of genetic factors. Importantly, a similar framework may be use for optimizing psychosocial interventions that can target certain alcoholism endophenotypes (e.g., craving). In an interesting application of behavioral genetics to optimizing treatment, Bauer and colleagues (2007) reported that variation within the GABRA2 gene thought to increase the risk for alcoholism (Edenberg et al., 2004), predicted response to the psychosocial interventions tested in Project MATCH. Specifically, the low-risk allele was associated with more robust differences in drinking outcomes in the trial, enhancing the superiority of Twelve-Step Facilitation (TSF) over Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) (Bauer et al., 2007). In short, these results indicate that the assessment of genetic liability may also be important to
