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Updated: Sep 6, 2025

Operant Sensation Seeking in the Mouse
Published on: November 10, 2010
The interplay between parental care and OPRM1 in reward responsiveness
Quanhe Wang1, Yuting Yang1, Rongjun Yu2
1College of Life Science, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China.
None:
The Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) explains a variety of reward-motivated behaviors as the result of the activation of biologically-based systems. Inspired by the influences of parental bonding and opioid peptide on reward system, we investigated the contributions of parental bonding and mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) towards motivation systems (i.e., the BAS, BIS-anxiety, and FFFS-fear). Results indicated that (1) parental care was negatively related to FFFS-fear, but parental overprotection was positively related to both FFFS-fear and BIS-anxiety; (2) parental care significantly interacted with OPRM1 rs1799971 in reward responsiveness with diathesis-stress model. Poor parental care reduced reward responsiveness among individuals with the G allele, but not those with the AA genotype. These findings from this study demonstrate a new gene-environment interactive mechanism of the RST.
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