DOPAMINE D2 RECEPTOR GENE VARIANTS - ASSOCIATION AND LINKAGE STUDIES IN IMPULSIVE-ADDICTIVE-COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOR

Drug and alcohol seeking behaviour has become a great global problem a ffecting millions of inhabitants with a cost to society in the billion s, Dopaminergic reward pathways have frequently been implicated in the etiology of addictive behaviour. While other neurotransmitters have a lso been implicated, to date the only molecular genetic defect which h as been found to associate with alcoholism, drug dependency, obesity, smoking, pathological gambling, attention-deficit-hyperactivity disord er (ADHD), Tourette syndrome, as well as other related compulsive beha viours, are the variants of the dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2). In t his review of the available data on the subject, we report a number of independent meta-analyses that confirm an association of DRD2 polymor phisms and impulsive-addictive-compulsive behaviour (IACB), which we h ave termed ''Reward Deficiency Syndrome'', While we agree that Meta-an alyses of all exant studies support an association of variants of DRD2 and IACB, correct negative findings with alcoholism may be due to dif ferences in assessing controls and inclusion/exclusion criteria for se lection of diseased probands.