The current study conducted a genome-wide linkage scan for alcohol dependence in the UCSF Family Alcoholism Study to support and extend previous findings of genetic linkage. First, we report the results of a linkage scan for alcohol dependence using DSM-IV diagnoses requiring a participant exhibit 3 out of 7 alcohol dependence symptom clusters during the same 12 month period. Second, we report the results of a linkage scan allowing for a broader alcohol dependence phenotype in which the same DSM-IV criteria were used but without requiring that the symptom clusters exhibit temporal clustering or overlap. The latter definition corresponds more closely to the DSM-III-R criteria (APA, 1987), which provides a more inclusive definition of alcohol dependence relative to DSM-IV (e.g., Schuckit et al., 1994). This approach is justified by previous studies that have used alternative definitions of alcohol dependence (Reich et al., 1998; Saccone et al., 2000; Wilhelmsen et al., 2003) to more fully test for susceptibility loci contributing to alcohol misuse. We then conducted follow-up analyses for identified linkage peaks by conducting linkage analysis for each of the 12
