Our finding of the association between these CNVs and alcohol dependence is encouraging because it identifies regions previously associated with neurological disorders, however these findings will require replication. Furthermore, whether these CNVs co-segregate with alcoholism in families remains to be explored – unfortunately, despite the cases and controls being drawn from family-based data, GWAS data and biological samples on parents are currently not available. Nonetheless, our study is amongst the first to examine the role of CNVs in the etiology of alcohol dependence. This reflects the exciting phase of the post-GWAS genomics era where the quest to articulate the genetic architecture of serious psychiatric problems like alcohol dependence moves beyond single SNP association to new frontiers, such as CNVs and rare variants.
