In sum, our results offer new empirical insights into the propensity for alcohol misuse. Persons who continue to binge drink in their 30s show increasing signs of departure from normative social behavior and incur consequences and risk for health harms from chronic excessive drinking (63–65). Study findings indicate that heightened rather than lower alcohol stimulation and reward sensitivity accounted for a large proportion of future drinking escalations and AUD symptoms. Alcohol challenge responses prospectively predicted alcohol problems through 6 years of follow-up and during the developmental phase when many young heavy drinkers mature and binge-drinking behaviors becomes less normative (22,23). Delineation of alcohol response phenotypes may add an important component to prevention and educational efforts to reduce alcohol harm in society. Additional neurobiological, genetic, and epigenetic research will provide important information on precise brain pathways and mechanisms underlying this phenotype.
