SEROTONIN TRANSPORTER GENE VARIANTS IN ALCOHOL-DEPENDENT SUBJECTS WITH DISSOCIAL PERSONALITY-DISORDER

Background: We tested the hypothesis that a functional biallelic repet itive element in the 5' regulatory region of the human serotonin trans porter gene (SLC6A4) confers susceptibility to serotonin-related perso nality traits underlying alcohol dependence with dissocial behavior. M ethods: The association study was focused on 64 alcohol-dependent subj ects with a dissocial personality disorder (according to ICD-IO) who w ere derived from 315 German alcohol-dependent subjects, The Tridimensi onal Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) was applied to assess personality dimensions in 101 alcohol-dependent men, including 39 dissocial alcoh olics. Results: Our association analyses revealed a trend towards a hi gher frequency of the short (S) allele of the SLC6A4 polymorphism in d issocial alcoholics compared to 216 German controls (Chi(2) = 2.81, df = 1, p = 0.094). Dissocial alcoholics carrying the S/S genotype exhib ited significant lower scores of harm avoidance compared to those lack ing it (U-test, p = 0.015), Significantly higher novelty seeking score s were obtained in dissocial alcoholics carrying the S allele relative to those lacking it (U-test, p = 0.021). Conclusions: Our tentative a ssociation findings in dissocial alcoholics suggest that the S allele of the 5' regulatory SLC6A4 polymorphism confers susceptibility to a t emperamental profile of high novelty seeking and low harm avoidance th at has been postulated to underlie dissocial (type-2) alcoholism accor ding to Cloninger's neurogenetic theory of personality. (C) 1998 Socie ty of Biological Psychiatry.