AUTHOR=Qin Huihui , Zeng Jianmin , Chen Hong , Deng Ling , Su Li 

TITLE=Can Your DNA Influence Your Bet-Placing? The Impact of Cannabinoid Receptor 1 Gene on Gambling Tasks

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

VOLUME=12

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00458

DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2018.00458

ISSN=1662-5161

ABSTRACT=<p>Are we placing a bet by ourselves or has our DNA already made the decision for us? Previous research has suggested that some genes related to dopamine or serotonin can influence our non-bet-placing decision-making, but little is known about whether cannabinoid-related genes can impact how much people bet. To investigate this issue, we focused on rs1049353, a single-nucleotide polymorphism of the cannabinoid receptor 1 (<italic>CNR1</italic>), because it is related to addictive behavior and reward processing. In this study (<italic>N</italic> = 377), we used a modified Cambridge gambling task to test the effect of <italic>rs1049353</italic> polymorphism on how much people bet. We found that participants who are homozygous for C allele placed significantly larger bets than C/T carriers [<italic>F</italic>(1,371) = 7.805, <italic>P</italic> = 0.005]. We further studied the gene expression map in human brains and found that the <italic>CNR1</italic> gene is overexpressed in striatum, amygdala, and hippocampus. These brain structures are known to underpin reward and risk processing. Our findings suggest that, to some extent, high-level social decision-making even like bet-placing could be influenced by a single genetic locus variation in healthy volunteers. In addition, such effects were likely to be mediated by key brain regions in the reward- and risk-processing networks.</p>