# A genetically informative approach to understanding the impact of spousal psychiatric disorders on alcohol use disorder onset, remission, and relapse

> **NIH NIH R01** · RUTGERS BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES · 2024 · $353,250

## Abstract

Project Summary
Our objective in this new R01 proposal is to delineate the impact of a spouse’s substance use and psychiatric
disorders on their partner’s alcohol use disorder (AUD) onset, remission, and relapse during marriage within a
genetically informative framework. To date, efforts to understand spousal influences on alcohol outcomes have
largely focused on alcohol-specific contagion models, whereby alcohol use behaviors in one partner are
socially transmitted to the other. Yet, this prior focus alcohol-specific contagion is restrictive in view of
epidemiological evidence that spouses of AUD-affected individuals also tend to suffer from other common
disorders, including major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, other drug abuse/dependence,
ADHD, and antisocial personality disorder. We build on these epidemiological findings to clarify the nature of
the associations between these other forms of spousal substance use and psychiatric disorders and key
alcohol outcomes including AUD onset, remission, and relapse. We do this within a genetically informative
framework that also recognizes the potential contributions of a spouse’s genetic propensity for a disorder even
in the absence of a diagnosis (i.e., social genetic effects), as well as how the focal individual’s genotype may
differentially sensitize him/her to a spouse’s disorder (i.e., gene-environment interaction effects). Relevant
phenotypic and genotypic data for this secondary data analysis project come from spousal dyads (N = 1,688
dyads) collected as part of the NIAAA-funded Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). Our
specific aims are to: (1) Delineate the temporal dynamics underlying associations between spousal substance
use and psychiatric disorder diagnoses (inclusive of cannabis use disorder, other psychoactive drug use
disorder, antisocial personal disorder, ADHD, nicotine dependence, major depressive disorder, and PTSD) and
their partner’s AUD onset, remission, and relapse; (2) Identify whether a spouse’s genetic propensity for
psychiatric disorders (above and beyond a diagnosis itself) is associated with their partner’s AUD onset,
remission, and relapse; (3) Examine whether the focal individual’s genetic predisposition for alcohol problems
predicts variability in their sensitivity to spousal substance use and psychiatric disorders; and (4) Evaluate
whether the expected effects differ as a function of sex and parenthood. The results may have theoretical
implications for expanding social stress models of AUD to include spousal substance use and psychiatric
disorders, and in turn this knowledge is anticipated to have implications for couples and family systems-based
preventive interventions for AUD. More broadly, this work will contribute to the collaborative research team’s
long-term goal to elucidate how genetic factors and close relationship factors come together to influence the
onset, persistence, and discontinuity of AUD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10893483
- **Project number:** 5R01AA030996-02
- **Recipient organization:** RUTGERS BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** JESSICA E SALVATORE
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $353,250
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-01 → 2027-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10893483

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10893483, A genetically informative approach to understanding the impact of spousal psychiatric disorders on alcohol use disorder onset, remission, and relapse (5R01AA030996-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10893483. Licensed CC0.

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