COGA participants were selected when they were between 25 and 50 years old so that results from this sample would reflect the typical adult brain without potential confounds in interpretation from the effects of adolescence or senescence. The human brain, and the prefrontal cortex in particular, doesn’t reach full maturity to adulthood until the mid-to-late 20s (Arain et al., 2013). Control and experimental groups were age-matched for further control over possible age-related confounds (Table 1). We compared unaffected controls with participants diagnosed with severe AUD, defined as having 6 or more of the 11 criteria for AUD diagnosis (DSM-5).
