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An association between fibromyalgia and the dopamine D4 receptor exon III repeat polymorphism and relationship to novelty seeking personality traits

Molecular Psychiatry volume 9, pages 730–731 (2004)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 25 October 2004

An Erratum to this article was published on 27 September 2004

SIR – Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common syndrome consisting of diffuse aching, pain, or stiffness in the muscles or joints, accompanied by multiple tender points on examination and the clinical profile includes many comorbid psychiatric symptoms as well as an atypical personality profile characterized by high harm avoidance (HA) and low novelty seeking (NS).1, 2 We have reported a higher frequency of the short promoter region of the serotonin transporter (HTTLPR), associated in some studies with both anxiety-related personality traits and stress-related depression, in FMS patients confirming a previous study.2, 3 A second gene widely studied in personality genetics is the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4), characterized by a highly polymorphic repeat (2–9 repeats of 48 bp) region in its third exon; the 7 repeat was initially associated with NS in some4, 5 but not all studies.6 Reduced NS scores in FM patients,2 prompted us to characterize the DRD4 exon III repeat region in a group we had previously investigated regarding HTTLPR.2 Altogether, we genotyped 81 female patients and 458 female control subjects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Rheumatic Disease Unit, Soroka Medical Center, Beer Shera, Israel

    B Dan

  2. Ministry of Health Mental Health Center, Anxiety and Stress Research Unit, Beer Shera, Israel

    C Hagit

  3. Epidemiology Department, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

    N Lily

  4. Psychology Department, Scheinfeld Center for Human Genetics in the Social Sciences, Hebrew University & Herzog Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel

    R P Ebstein

Authors
  1. B Dan
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  2. C Hagit
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  3. N Lily
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  4. R P Ebstein
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Correspondence to R P Ebstein.

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Dan, B., Hagit, C., Lily, N. et al. An association between fibromyalgia and the dopamine D4 receptor exon III repeat polymorphism and relationship to novelty seeking personality traits. Mol Psychiatry 9, 730–731 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001506

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