Given that such neurogenetic investigations have the potential to further refine aetiological and theoretical frameworks of AUD development, the current study aimed to identify shared and unique sources of genetic overlap among sensation seeking, alcohol consumption, and AUD using large‐scale genomic, neuroimaging, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and chromatin‐based data. Multiple statistical approaches, spanning different levels of genetic analysis (i.e., single‐variant and gene‐based), were used to assess neurobiological sources of overlap among these traits. It was hypothesised that, across analytic approaches, sensation seeking would demonstrate stronger associations with alcohol consumption than with AUD, that genetic associations between sensation seeking and AUD would be partially mediated by alcohol consumption, and that neurogenetic evidence of overlap among traits would map onto brain regions implicated by previous theory and research as summarised earlier in the text.
