In our general population sample, after excluding lifetime abstainers, we identified a highly coherent single factor with strong loadings on all 7 items assessing the symptoms of alcohol abuse and dependence. When controlling for age, sex and ancestry, the estimated residual AD factor scores was broadly dispersed, indicating that we succeeded at assessing a wide range of vulnerability to AD. We analyzed the available genetic data in this sample at three levels: i) individual SNPs and genes from the association analysis, ii) prior selected candidate genes and iii) GO categories. We organize this discussion around these three levels of analysis.
