NEW JERSEY — A Rutgers-led study of nearly 12,000 adolescents has found that a combination of genetic predispositions, personality traits, and environmental factors plays a critical role in when and how young people begin using alcohol.
Published in Translational Psychiatry, the study draws on data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a long-term, NIH-funded project that is the largest of its kind in the United States. The project began tracking children at age 9 and will follow them through age 18, examining cognitive development, mental health, and substance use.
“We found that risk for early alcohol use was not just related to key environmental factors like parental substance use but was also associated with individual characteristics like genetics and impulsive personality,” said Sarah Brislin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, a member of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center and the study’s senior author. “No one type of information provided the whole picture.”
The study assessed three milestones in early alcohol use: the age of first sip, the age of first full drink, and the speed of progression between those two events. Researchers used polygenic risk scores, neuroimaging data, psychological assessments, and environmental indicators to identify which factors predicted each stage.
According to the findings, genetic risk for behavioral disinhibition—an impulsivity-related trait linked to ADHD and substance use—along with prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol and impulsive personality traits, were predictors of early sipping. The shift from sipping to a full drink, however, was more strongly tied to individual-level characteristics such as sensation-seeking and genetic predispositions, rather than environmental influences.
“Environment, particularly home environment, plays a key role in when kids have their first exposure to alcohol; however, once they have their first sip, individual factors like genetic predisposition and sensation-seeking personality features seem to be the driving [forces] whether they progress to additional milestones,” Brislin said.
Researchers say the study is among the first to examine the combined and separate effects of genetic, neural, psychological, and environmental risks for early alcohol use. Genetic markers, particularly those related to disinhibition, remained predictive even when other factors were accounted for.
Brislin said the research supports prevention strategies aimed at high-risk youth—especially those focused on improving school engagement, addressing impulsivity, and supporting positive parenting practices.
The study was co-authored by Rutgers researchers Danielle Dick, Maia Choi, Fazil Aliev, Peter Barr, Megan Cooke, Sally I. Kuo, and Jessica E. Salvatore.
