We focused on the single item “dizziness” based on our previous analysis of CHRNB3 and early subjective effects to tobacco in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, where this item emerged as an important contributor to a genetically-derived principal component subjective effects phenotype (Zeiger et al., 2008). It is noteworthy that in this sample there was a strong correlation between “dizziness” and nicotine dependence, where dependent subjects were more likely to report feeling of “intense” dizziness. This supports the idea that “dizziness” might be an early smoking-related phenotype which may be more closely related to the underlying genetic mechanisms of tobacco addiction, while simultaneously encompassing important predicative validity regarding clinical dependence.
