D2 and D4 dopamine receptor gene polymorphisms and personality traits in a young Korean population

The correlation between the D4 dopamine receptor gene (DRD4) and the D2 dopamine receptor gene (DRD2) polymorphisms was investigated with personality traits. For this study, homogeneous population consisting of 243 young alcohol- and drug-naive Koreans who were blood-unrelated with a mean age (+/-SD) of 13.87 (+/-0.30) years old was analyzed for the DRD4 and the DRD2 polymorphisms with their personality trait by Temperament and character inventory (TCI). The association between Novelty seeking (NS) score and DRD4 long alleles was only observed among the female subjects (t = 2.11, P = 0.037), but not in the male counter part. Female subjects who carried the DRD2 less frequent alleles (TaqI A1, TaqI B1, and Intron6 1) showed higher RD4 scores (dependence vs. independence) of Reward dependence (RD) than those without these alleles (P < 0.05). There was no interaction between DRD4 and DRD2 on the personality traits. These results, thus, confirmed the previous findings in which the long repeats of the DRD4-exon III polymorphism are related to NS personality trait, and also suggested that the DRD2 less frequent alleles were also associated with the reward-dependent trait.