Based on the Iowa adoption study, Cutrona et al. (1994) reported that women adoptees with a biological alcoholic background who experienced high levels of early adoptive family conflict were more likely to have had an AUD (38%) than those who experienced low levels of early adoptive family conflict (4%). Early-life family conflict was unrelated to AUD probability among women without a biological alcoholic parent, indicative of genetic influences on sensitivity to environmental risk. In contrast, no evidence of GxE was found for four other indices of adoptive family environment studied in these women, nor for any indices of adoptive family environment studied in the men in this sample (Table 1).
