The specificity of the GxE effects to AUD symptoms in EA men raises questions regarding possible sources of distinction by race/ethnicity, sex, and alcohol phenotype. Findings indicate that African-Americans differ from European-Americans in the impact of childhood adversity on genetic liability to alcohol problems. There is some evidence that African-Americans are more resilient than European-Americans to the potential psychiatric sequelae of trauma (Schilling et al., 2007). Although the statistically significant main effects for childhood adversity in AA women and men appear to contradict this contention, the absence of an interaction effect indicates that experiencing adverse events in childhood does not attenuate the protective effects of the minor allele on the ADHB1 variant, as it does in EA males. This distinction may reflect differences by population in the mechanisms underlying the link between childhood adversity and alcohol outcomes.
