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Updated: Aug 26, 2026

Investigating Drivers of Antireward in Addiction Behavior with Anatomically Specific Single-Cell Gene Expression Methods
Published on: August 4, 2022
Genes associated with addiction: alcoholism, opiate, and cocaine addiction
Mary Jeanne Kreek1, David A Nielsen, K Steven LaForge
1Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA. kreek@rockefeller.edu
Abstract:
Drug addiction is a complex disorder that has a large spectrum of causes. Vulnerability to addiction has been shown in twin studies to have a robust genetic component. This genetic basis for addiction has general and specific components for each drug abused. Although many genes have been implicated in drug addiction, only a handful have either been replicated to have an association or to have an identified functional mechanism related to specific effects of abused drugs. A few selected genetic variants that currently look promising for the study of alcohol, opiate, and cocaine addiction are discussed in this article.
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