In the early 1980’s, Marc Schuckit embarked on a landmark prospective study comparing two cohorts of young men. One group was Family History Positive (FHP) for alcoholism (sons of alcoholics), and the other FH Negative (having no first or second degree relatives who were alcoholic). His research group brought them into the laboratory and gave them alcohol (sometimes referred to as an “alcohol challenge”), and assessed a number of their responses to alcohol and placebo. Among these were body sway, plasma cortisol and prolactin levels, electrophysiological measures and subjective responses to alcohol (self reported “high,” etc). He found that FHP individuals were less responsive to alcohol than FHN individuals. Examples of these early findings are presented in (Schuckit 1985) and (Schuckit, Gold 1988). These findings have been confirmed by a number of groups including a meta-analysis of studies evaluating subjective feelings following an alcohol challenge (Pollock 1992).
