Introduction to personality-biological interactions in alcoholism: 'The Markku Linnoila Memorial Symposium'.

Abstract

Although a number of specific personality disorders, including anti-social personality, passive-dependent personality, and explosive personality, have been associated with the diagnosis of alcoholism, studies of the relationship of underlying personality and/or temperament to the nature, phenomenology, psychobiology, prognosis, and treatment of alcoholism have occurred much less frequently. However, there is a growing body of evidence that core or underlying personality and temperament are important determinants of vulnerability to becoming an alcoholic and of the nature of alcoholic subtypes. Furthermore, these personality and temperament variables appear linked to biological and/or genetic mechanisms. In parallel to human studies, experiments using rodents and primates have demonstrated animal behavioural characteristics, such as impulsivity, excessive or deficient behavioural inhibition, and a tendency to explore, which appear to parallel human personality characteristics, and these characteristics may predict genetically determined excessive alcohol consumption in animals. This special section is devoted to the memory of our esteemed colleague, Dr Markku Linnoila, honouring his many contributions to the field of alcoholism research and specifically to the theme of this special section. It is derived from a symposium presented at the Ninth Congress of the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ISBRA), held during the period 27 June‐2 July 1998 in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a world renowned expert on serotonin, Dr Linnoila led a team that was widely recognized as the world’s leading research group investigating serotonin and behaviour. His work was particularly focused on the relationship between serotonin and personality and he published numerous papers showing a relationship between the two. His 1983 landmark research paper investigating serotonin, fire-setting, and violence, bridged three disparate research fields: suicide, alcoholism, and aggression, and showed that the common link between these serotonin-mediated psychopathologies was impulsivity. While pursuing cutting-edge research with scientists in his homeland of Finland, where he was able to investigate the biological correlates of personality in violent offenders and alcoholics, he forged a relationship with those who were investigating non-human primate personality, leading to the first comprehensive non-human primate model linking serotonin and psychopathology. This model has been instrumental in understanding the biological and psychosocial correlates of Type 2-like excessive alcohol consumption. In this special section, we explore the interface