Brief report: cognitive control helps explain comorbidity between alcohol use disorder and internalizing disorders.

OBJECTIVE

Alcohol use and internalizing problems frequently co-occur. Cognitive control has been implicated in their etiology, but no studies have tested whether this construct helps explain the co-occurrence of these disorders.

METHOD

A total of 1,313 undergraduate students completed assessments of cognitive control, negative emotionality, and symptoms of alcohol use disorder (AUD), depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. Structural equation models examined the extent to which overlap between AUD and internalizing problems was explained by variance specific to cognitive control and negative emotionality, as well as variance shared by both constructs.

RESULTS

Symptoms of AUD and internalizing disorders were modestly correlated (depression: r = .16; anxiety: r = .14). Variance specific to cognitive control explained a significant proportion of the correlation between AUD and both depression and generalized anxiety (depression: 19%; generalized anxiety: 18%), as did variance common to cognitive control and negative emotionality (depression: 24%; generalized anxiety: 31%). Consistent with previous work, variance specific to negative emotionality also explained a large and statistically significant proportion of the correlation between AUD and internalizing disorder symptoms. Of note, the residualized correlation for AUD symptom endorsement with both depression and generalized anxiety problems was not statistically significant after accounting for both cognitive control and negative emotionality.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides new evidence that cognitive control may help explain the overlap between AUD and internalizing disorders while further supporting the contribution of negative emotionality to this overlap. RESULTS have implications for intervention efforts aimed at reducing comorbid alcohol use disorder and internalizing disorders, as well as general psychopathology.