Likewise the heritability of nicotine withdrawal has not been compared across adult and adolescent smokers. While in adult samples, it has been shown that up to 53% of the variation in nicotine withdrawal symptoms can be accounted for by genetic factors, and significant genetic influences remain even after accounting for starting to smoke and quantity smoked (Pergadia et al., 2006b) and early social influences (Pergadia et al., 2006a), no reports to date have examined genetic influences on nicotine withdrawal in adolescent smokers. Although refining the phenotype and establishing heritability of nicotine withdrawal may help to inform the recent surge in gene-mapping projects involving smoking-related behaviors (e.g., Saccone et al., 2007a; Saccone et al., 2007b), including nicotine withdrawal (Pergadia et al., 2009).
