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Opioid Receptor PET Reveals the Psychobiologic Correlates of Reward Processing

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany; ² Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany; ³ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Aachen University of Technology, Aachen, Germany; ⁴ Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; ⁵ Department of Nuclear Medicine, Technical University, Munich, Germany; and ⁶ Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ludwig Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany

Correspondence: For correspondence or reprints contact: Mathias Schreckenberger, Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Mainz, Langenbeckstrasse 1, D-55101 Mainz, Germany. E-mail: schreckenberger{at}nuklear.klinik.uni-mainz.de

Little is known about the neurobiologic correlates of human personality. On the basis of the key role of the central opioidergic system in addiction and substance abuse, we investigated the relationship between certain personality traits that are supposed to be relevant in addiction and the opioid receptor status in healthy subjects. Methods: We investigated 23 healthy male volunteers who were extensively clinically tested to exclude substance abuse. All of the subjects underwent 1 PET scan with the subtype-nonselective opioidergic radioligand ¹⁸F-fluoroethyl-diprenorphine under resting conditions without sensory or cognitive stimulation. Subsequently, the subjects were psychologically tested for the personality traits novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence, according to Cloninger's biosocial model of personality. The binding potential (BP) as a parameter of regional cerebral opioid receptor availability was computed by means of the modified Logan plot using the occipital cortex as a reference region. Further imaging data analysis was performed using statistical parametric mapping; after stereotactic normalization, the correlations were calculated between the regional BP and the psychologic scores on a voxel-by-voxel basis. Results: The correlation analysis between personality dimensions and opioid receptor availability showed a significant (P < 0.001) positive correlation between the scores of reward dependence and the BP of the bilateral ventral striatum with nucleus accumbens (z scores, 4.52 and 4.33, respectively). The additionally performed region-of-interest–based correlation analysis yielded correlation coefficients of r = 0.84 and r = 0.81 for the left and right ventral striata, respectively. No further significant correlations were detectable between the other personality dimensions and cerebral opioid receptor binding. Conclusion: In healthy subjects, personality traits, which might be predisposing for addictive behavior, are correlated to the opioidergic neurotransmission in core structures of the human reward system.

Key Words: opioid receptor • personality • addiction • drug abuse • positron emission tomography

COPYRIGHT © 2008 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine, Inc.

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