Parental alcoholism is a significant risk factor for substance use disorders (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2000), with genetic influences accounting for 40–60% of the variance in substance abuse risk (reviewed in (Nestler, 2000; Tyndale, 2003). fMRI studies evaluating adolescents with a family history of alcoholism (FH+) revealed abnormal suppression of ventral striatal activation during passive viewing of emotional stimuli in adolescents identified as vulnerable based on early drug and alcohol involvement (Heitzeg et al., 2008). Yet during response inhibition, FH+ youth showed increased ventral striatal response (Heitzeg et al., 2010), suggesting a contextually-driven disrupted modulation. However, ambiguity exists even within a given context. Using a MID task, NAcc reward response differences were seen between non-abusing FH+ adults versus controls (Andrews et al., 2011) while no FH differences were found in young adolescents (Bjork et al., 2008a). The latter study, however, found a relationship between NAcc activation and sensation-seeking scores across all subjects. Sensation-seeking is related to high risk taking and impulsive decision making (Zuckerman, 2007) and been linked with heavy alcohol use, early onset of substance use
