Variants in the dopamine-4-receptor gene promoter are not associated with sensation seeking in skiers

Cynthia J Thomson; Amelia K Rajala; Scott R Carlson; Jim L Rupert

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093521

Variants in the dopamine-4-receptor gene promoter are not associated with sensation seeking in skiers

PLoS One. 2014 Apr 1;9(4):e93521. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093521. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Cynthia J Thomson¹, Amelia K Rajala², Scott R Carlson³, Jim L Rupert¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
² Department of Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, Minnesota, United States of America.

Abstract

Sensation seeking is a personality trait that has been associated with disinhibited behaviours including substance use and gambling, but also with high-risk sport practices including skydiving, paragliding, and downhill skiing. Twin studies have shown that sensation seeking is moderately heritable, and candidate genes encoding components involved in dopaminergic transmission have been investigated as contributing to this type of behaviour. To determine whether variants in the regulatory regions of the dopamine-4-receptor gene (DRD4) influenced sport-specific sensation seeking, we analyzed five polymorphisms (-1106T/C, -906T/C, -809G/A, -291C/T, 120-bp duplication) in the promoter region of the gene in a cohort of skiers and snowboarders (n = 599) that represented a broad range of sensation seeking behaviours. We grouped subjects by genotype at each of the five loci and compared impulsive sensation seeking and domain-specific (skiing) sensation seeking between groups. There were no significant associations between genotype(s) and general or domain-specific sensation seeking in the skiers and snowboarders, suggesting that while DRD4 has previously been implicated in sensation seeking, the promoter variants investigated in this study do not contribute to sensation seeking in this athlete population.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Alleles
Genetic Association Studies
Genetic Variation*
Genotype
Humans
Middle Aged
Polymorphism, Genetic
Promoter Regions, Genetic*
Receptors, Dopamine D4 / genetics*
Sensation / genetics*
Skiing*
Young Adult

Substances

Receptors, Dopamine D4

Grants and funding

Canadian Graduate Scholarship from Canadian Institute for Health Research to C.J. Thomson (CANADA), British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Research to J.L. Rupert (CANADA), and Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD; German Academic Exchange Service) to N. Hase (GERMANY). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.