The primary aim of the current study was to conduct a genome-wide linkage scan of alcohol dependence in the UCSF Family Alcoholism Study to support and extend the findings of previous linkage studies. When alcohol diagnoses were derived from the SSAGA using the full DSM-IV criteria including the requirement that presentation of symptoms overlap or cluster temporally, the strongest linkage peak was identified at chromosome 8q24.3. Though somewhat distant from the present peak, a region of chromosome 8 (60 cM centromeric) has been implicated in alcohol dependence in two previous studies (Bergen et al., 2003; Corbett et al., 2005). A novel locus was identified at chromosome 1p36.31–p36.22. Although no previous linkage studies of alcohol dependence have identified this region as a susceptibility locus, previous studies have linked this region to depression (McGuffin et al., 2005; Nash et al., 2004) and conduct disorder (Dick et al., 2004), which are highly co-morbid with alcohol dependence (Hasin et al., 2007). A third locus was identified at chromosome 18p11.21–p11.2, and notably, multiple studies from four independent samples have linked this region to alcohol dependence-related
