LESS Highest Impact scores were positively correlated with AUDIT scores (b=0.108, p=0.003) and this effect was robust to gender, age, and race/ethnicity (b=0.132, p=0.0002). Importantly, however, the relation between LESS and AUDIT scores was moderated by amygdala and VS activation (b=−0.377, p=0.022), such that relatively increased levels of stress-related problem drinking were observed in individuals with one of two distinct neural profiles (Figure 2). The first risk profile consisted of a combination of relatively low VS activity and relatively high amygdala reactivity, while the second risk profile consisted of the opposite combination of relatively high VS activity and relatively low amygdala reactivity. Notably, while stress predicted greater problem drinking for those with intermediate (i.e., mean) levels of amygdala reactivity and VS activity as well, the relative risk (i.e., the strength of the linear relationship between stress and problem drinking) increased as the imbalance between these two neural phenotypes increased (Supplementary Figure 2). In contrast, those individuals in whom both VS activity and amygdala reactivity was either low (<1SD below the mean) or high (>1 SD above the mean) did not
