Genetic Bases of Addictive Behaviors
Scott D. Philibin, Kristine M. Wiren and John C. Crabbe

In: The Molecular and Genetic Basis of Neurologic and Psychiatric Disease. 4th Edition. Rosenberg RR, DiMauro S, Paulson H, Ptacek L, Nestler E (Eds), Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, in press.

Addiction is not a medical term, and the range of disorders included varies according to the beliefs of the beholder. Nonetheless, its lay usage and dictionary definitions reflect the common belief that at its core is surrender to habitual, self-destructive behavior. Like most psychiatric disorders, attempts to define diagnostic criteria must use terms and constructs from entirely different languages, descriptions of biological factors and descriptions of intrapsychic events whose basis is unknown. The term addiction does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV, but in that manual, “substance use disorders” would be on nearly everyone’s list of addictions, while such disorders as Bulemia Nervosa, Pathological Gambling, etc. would make the list for many .

This review will focus on drug addiction for several reasons. Most data on genetic contributions to addictive behaviors relates to drug dependence. Neurobiological insights have been derived almost entirely from rat and mouse studies employing genetic models of addiction. This is because drugs, given systematically in an experimentally controlled setting to genetically defined subjects, exert their effects in increasingly well-understood pharmacological pathways, often via specific neurotransmitter receptors. Many pharmacological agonist and antagonist drugs and genetic manipulations are available to the experimenter
. . . . . .
Read Full Chapter (PDF)
__________________________________________________________________