The Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism

In 1989 the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism initiated the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA), a large-scale, multidisciplinary research program to investigate the genetic components of the susceptibility to alcohol abuse and dependence. COGA involves six research centers located across the United States. The following articles by leading COGA investigators provide an overview of the design of this study and its components and of the challenges inherent to an endeavor of this scope. The authors also present some of the results obtained through COGA to date. Although sometimes still preliminary in nature, these findings reflect COGA’s potential for greatly improving our knowledge of the complex disorder of alcoholism.