While individual differences in the dopamine system are not sufficient to solely account for individual differences in cocaine dependence (e.g., Hnasko et al., 2007), dopamine has been repeatedly shown in both human and animal models to strongly influence the propensity to develop such dependence (see Haile et al., 2007 for a review). Further molecular genetic investigation may be a promising research direction to more fully elucidate the relationship between dopamine and cocaine dependence.
