The majority of the studies done to date have been in populations of European ancestry. An additional challenge will be to examine AD risk from a population perspective. This will be very important, since there are already considerable data supporting risk differences by population. Some risk alleles are already known to be population specific. It will also be of interest to determine whether particular loci are also population specific. In the context of this growing knowledge, it seems that we are likely on the threshold of major advances in our understanding of the genetics, and therefore the physiology, of alcohol dependence risk.
