ArticleBMC public health2021
Dopamine D4 receptor gene polymorphism (DRD4 VNTR) moderates real-world behavioural response to the food retail environment in children.
Article in BMC public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Multimodal (Bio)Markers and Risk of Obesity - A Comprehensive Scoping Review.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- A comprehensive tandem repeat catalog of the human genome.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Activation of dopamine D4 receptors in the nucleus accumbens shell increases motivation for palatable food and homeostatic feeding, whereas systemic blockade reduces feeding behavior in rats.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- DRD4 Interacts with TGF-β Receptors to Drive Colorectal Cancer Metastasis Independently of Dopamine Signaling Pathway.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Exploring the impact of deleterious missense nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms in the DRD4 gene using computational approaches.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Invited Expert Opinion- Bioinformatic and Limitation Directives to Help Adopt Genetic Addiction Risk Screening and Identify Preaddictive Reward Dysregulation: Required Analytic Evidence to Induce Dopamine Homeostatsis.Medical research archives · 2023Article
- Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) Surprisingly Is Evolutionary and Found Everywhere: Is It "Blowin' in the Wind"?Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Pharmacogenetics of Addiction Therapy.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Genetically-predicted prefrontal DRD4 gene expression modulates differentiated brain responses to food cues in adolescent girls and boys.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEvidence for the impact of the food retailing environment on food-related and obesity outcomes remains equivocal, but only a few studies have attempted to identify sub-populations for whom this relationship might be stronger than others. Genetic polymorphisms related to dopamine signalling have been associated with differences in responses to rewards such as food and may be candidate markers to identify such sub-populations. This study sought to investigate whether genetic variation of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4 exon III 48 bp VNTR polymorphism) moderated the association between local exposure to food retailers on BMI and diet in a sample of 4 to12-year-old children.
methodsData collected from a birth cohort and a community cross-sectional study conducted in Montreal, Canada, were combined to provide DRD4 VNTR polymorphism data in terms of presence of the 7-repeat allele (DRD4-7R) for 322 children aged between 4 and 12 (M (SD): 6.8(2.8) y). Outcomes were Body Mass Index (BMI) for age and energy density derived from a Food Frequency Questionnaire. Food environment was expressed as the proportion of local food retailers classified as healthful within 3 km of participants' residence. Linear regression models adjusted for age, sex, income, cohort, and geographic clustering were used to test gene*environment interactions.
resultsA significant gene*food environment interaction was found for energy density with results indicating that DRD4-7R carriers had more energy dense diets than non-carriers, with this effect being more pronounced in children living in areas with proportionally more unhealthy food retailers. No evidence of main or interactive effects of DRD4 VNTR and food environment was found for BMI.
conclusionsResults of the present study suggest that a genetic marker related to dopamine pathways can identify children with potentially greater responsiveness to unhealthy local food environment. Future studies should investigate additional elements of the food environment and test whether results hold across different populations.
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