Genetic Loci Influencing Cue-Reactivity in Heterogeneous Stock Rats

Addiction vulnerability is associated with the tendency to attribute incentive salience to reward predictive cues. Both addiction and the attribution of incentive salience are influenced by environmental and genetic factors. To characterize the genetic contributions to incentive salience attribution, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in a cohort of 1596 heterogeneous stock (HS) rats. Rats underwent a Pavlovian conditioned approach task that characterized the responses to food-associated stimuli (“cues”). Responses ranged from cue-directed “sign-tracking” behavior to food-cup directed “goal-tracking” behavior (12 measures, SNP heritability: 0.051–0.215). Next, rats performed novel operant responses for unrewarded presentations of the cue using the conditioned reinforcement procedure. GWAS identified 14 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for 11 of the 12 traits across both tasks. Interval sizes of these QTLs varied widely. Seven traits shared a QTL on chromosome 1 that contained a few genes (e.g., Tenm4, Mir708) that have been associated with substance use disorders and other psychiatric disorders in humans. Other candidate genes (e.g., Wnt11, Pak1) in this region had coding variants and expression-QTLs in mesocorticolimbic regions of the brain. We also conducted a Phenome-Wide Association Study (PheWAS) on addiction-related behaviors in HS rats and found that the QTL on chromosome 1 was also associated with nicotine self-administration in a separate cohort of HS rats. These results provide a starting point for the molecular genetic dissection of incentive motivational processes and provide further support for a relationship between the attribution of incentive salience and drug abuse-related traits.