Finding paradigms for the future of alcoholism research: An interdisciplinary perspective

This is a review article and critique of current research strategies in the alcohol field. Although the alcohol field is proud of its multidisciplinar y tradition and scientific findings within specific disciplines, there are very few models of cross-disciplinary research and communication. Currently , the favored model of risk is genetic; the favored model of pathophysiolog y is molecular neuroscience; and the favored model of clinical investigatio n is narrowly categorical. If there is a hierarchy within science that is b ased on explanatory power, then models of alcoholism emerging from neurosci ence, molecular biology, and genetics should be able to accommodate (if not account for) the findings on clinical aspects of alcohol dependence, as we ll as data on differential risk, course, and recovery that come from the be havioral and social sciences. The first section of this article reviews the most popular models of alcohol dependence over the past 40 years. I argue that the currently fashionable categorical approach to diagnosis in DSM-IV (and ICD-10) has failed to serve as a framework for interdisciplinary resea rch and has failed to meet the needs of human geneticists, population-based researchers, psychosocial researchers, basic scientists working in animal models, and patient-oriented researchers. I argue for a return to the dimen sional approach to diagnosis in the alcohol dependence syndrome construct. In the second section of the article, I lay out an agenda for revitalized p atient-oriented research in the alcohol field, as a bridge between basic bi ological research and innovations in clinical practice, as well as the key to a valid diagnostic system that can inform research strategies in genetic s and population-based research. In the third section of the article, I hig hlight the interface between genetic and psychosocial models of risk and pr opose a possible structure for future collaboration. I conclude with a plea to funding agencies and investigators to translate discipline-based scient ific findings into a science relevant to alcoholism by addressing the chall enges and opportunities of an interdisciplinary research agenda on the path ophysiology of alcohol dependence and the multidimensional sources of risk.