Gene Variants of Brain Dopamine Pathways and Smoking-Induced Dopamine Release in the Ventral Caudate/Nucleus Accumbens

Abstract

Smokers with genes associated with low resting dopamine tone have greater smoking-induced (phasic) dopamine release than those with alternate genotypes. These findings suggest that dopamine system genotype variabilities explain a significant proportion of the interindividual variability in smoking-induced dopamine release and indicate that smoking-induced dopamine release has a genetic predisposition.