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Etiology of early age onset substance use disorder: A maturational perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1999

RALPH TARTER
Affiliation:
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL VANYUKOV
Affiliation:
Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR), Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical School
PETER GIANCOLA
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky
MICHAEL DAWES
Affiliation:
Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR), Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical School
TIMOTHY BLACKSON
Affiliation:
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University
ADA MEZZICH
Affiliation:
Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR), Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical School
DUNCAN B. CLARK
Affiliation:
Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR), Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical School

Abstract

The etiology of early age onset substance use disorder (SUD), an Axis I psychiatric illness, is examined from the perspective of the multifactorial model of complex disorders. Beginning at conception, genetic and environment interactions produce a sequence of biobehavioral phenotypes during development which bias the ontogenetic pathway toward SUD. One pathway to SUD is theorized to emanate from a deviation in somatic and neurological maturation, which, in the context of adverse environments, predisposes to affective and behavioral dysregulation as the cardinal SUD liability-contributing phenotype. Dysregulation progresses via epigenesis from difficult temperament in infancy to conduct problems in childhood to substance use by early adolescence and to severe SUD by young adulthood.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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