To probe the potential mechanisms underlying any significant interaction effects, we constructed moderated mediation models, where we tested if current levels of anxious and depressive symptoms, as well as delay discounting, conditionally mediate the relationship between stress to AUDIT scores as a function of VS activity and amygdala reactivity. All moderated mediation analyses were conducted using Model 19 of the PROCESS macro in SPSS.43 Bootstrapped bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs) for each indirect effect were generated using 5,000 bootstrapping iterations. Model fit was assessed using Mplus 6.12.45 Based on prior research,21 we focused all of our analyses on amygdala reactivity and VS activity in the left hemisphere. However, we also report results from exploratory analyses of the same statistical relationships in right hemisphere activation clusters (Supplementary Figure 1). The significance for all tests was set at p<0.05, two-sided. Due to the strong a priori rationale for building our statistical models, no correction for multiple testing was applied.
