Psychogenomics: Opportunities for understanding addiction

The term psychogenomics is used here to describe the process of applying th e powerful tools of genomics and proteomics to achieve a better understandi ng of the biological substrates of normal behavior and of diseases of the b rain that manifest themselves as behavioral abnormalities. Applying psychog enomics to the study of drug addiction will lead to the identification of g enes and their protein products that control the reward pathways of the bra in and their adaptations to drugs of abuse, as well as variations in these genes that confer genetic risk for addiction and related disorders. The ult imate goal is to use this information to develop more effective treatments for these disorders as well as objective diagnostic tools, preventive measu res, and eventually cures.