The Relationship Between Psychological Distress, Negative Cognitions, and Expectancies on Problem Drinking: Exploring a Growing Problem Among University Students

Difficulties with positive, but not negative, emotion regulation moderate the association between positive alcohol expectancies and alcohol use in college students

Background

Positive alcohol expectancies are linked to increased alcohol use among college students. Difficulties regulating emotion have been shown to moderate this relationship, though little research accounts for differences based on the valence of the emotion being regulated.

Objective

To examine the independent moderating roles of positive and negative emotion dysregulation on the association between positive alcohol expectancies and alcohol use.

Methods

College students (N = 165, Mage = 20.48, SDage = 1.90; 66.1 % Female; 66.7 % White; 65.5 % non-Hispanic) who reported regular substance use (≥ 3 times in the past week) completed a one-time survey. Linear regression analyses with moderation were conducted.

Results

Correlational analyses suggested that positive alcohol expectancies, positive emotion dysregulation, and negative emotion dysregulation were positively associated with greater alcohol use. Linear regression analyses indicated that difficulties with positive emotion regulation moderated the relationship between positive alcohol expectancies and alcohol use. However, difficulties with negative emotion regulation did not moderate this relationship. College students who reported greater positive alcohol expectancies and concurrently greater difficulties with positive emotion regulation also report greater alcohol consumption, compared to those who reported greater positive alcohol expectancies and fewer difficulties regulating positive emotion.

Discussion

Difficulties with positive, not negative, emotion regulation may serve as a risk factor for hazardous alcohol use in college students. Findings may inform the modification of existing intervention programs across university counseling centers and other health sectors to promote the development of positive emotion regulation skills for individuals who endorse positive emotion regulation difficulties, thereby reducing hazardous alcohol use amid this high-risk developmental period.

Adolescent Alcohol and Stress Exposure Rewires Key Cortical Neurocircuitry

Human adolescence is a period of development characterized by wide ranging emotions and behavioral risk taking, including binge drinking (Konrad et al., 2013). These behavioral manifestations of adolescence are complemented by growth in the neuroarchitecture of the brain, including synaptic pruning (Spear, 2013) and increases in overall white matter volume (Perrin et al., 2008). During this period of profound physiological maturation, the adolescent brain has a unique vulnerability to negative perturbations. Alcohol consumption and stress exposure, both of which are heightened during adolescence, can individually and synergistically alter these neurodevelopmental trajectories in positive and negative ways (conferring both resiliency and susceptibility) and influence already changing neurotransmitter systems and circuits. Importantly, the literature is rapidly changing and evolving in our understanding of basal sex differences in the brain, as well as the interaction between biological sex and life experiences. The animal literature provides the distinctive opportunity to explore sex-specific stress- and alcohol- induced changes in neurocircuits on a relatively rapid time scale. In addition, animal models allow for the investigation of individual neurons and signaling molecules otherwise inaccessible in the human brain. Here, we review the human and rodent literature with a focus on cortical development, neurotransmitters, peptides, and steroids, to characterize the field's current understanding of the interaction between adolescence, biological sex, and exposure to stress and alcohol.

Phenome-Wide Association Study for Alcohol and Nicotine Risk Alleles in 26394 Women

To identify novel traits associated with alleles known to predispose to alcohol and nicotine use, we conducted a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) in a large multi-population cohort. We investigated 7688 African-Americans, 1133 Asian-Americans, 14 081 European-Americans, and 3492 Hispanic-Americans from the Women's Health Initiative, analyzing alleles at the CHRNA3-CHRNA5 locus, ADH1B, and ALDH2 with respect to phenotypic traits related to anthropometric characteristics, dietary habits, social status, psychological traits, reproductive history, health conditions, and nicotine/alcohol use. In ADH1B trans-population meta-analysis and population-specific analysis, we replicated prior associations with drinking behaviors and identified multiple novel phenome-wide significant and suggestive findings related to psychological traits, socioeconomic status, vascular/metabolic conditions, and reproductive health. We then applied Bayesian network learning algorithms to provide insight into the causative relationships of the novel ADH1B associations: ADH1B appears to affect phenotypic traits via both alcohol-mediated and alcohol-independent effects. In an independent sample of 2379 subjects, we also replicated the novel ADH1B associations related to socioeconomic status (household gross income and highest grade finished in school). For CHRNA3-CHRNA5 risk alleles, we replicated association with smoking behaviors, lung cancer, and asthma. There were also novel suggestive CHRNA3-CHRNA5 findings with respect to high-cholesterol-medication use and distrustful attitude. In conclusion, the genetics of alcohol and tobacco use potentially has broader implications on physical and mental health than is currently recognized. In particular, ADH1B may be a gene relevant for the human phenome via both alcohol metabolism-related mechanisms and other alcohol metabolism-independent mechanisms.