The Key Dopamine Receptor Gene That Influences Your Intelligence And Creativity (DRD2)

The DRD2 gene codes for the D2 dopamine receptor, which is one of several different important receptors that determine the overall levels of dopamine activity in your brain [R, R].

However, unlike several other major types of dopamine receptors, D2 receptors are inhibitory [R, R, R]. This means that having more of these receptors generally results in lower overall dopamine activity in the brain, and vice-versa [R, R, R, R, R, R].

Because dopamine is highly involved in many processes that are critical for proper cognitive function, SNPs in the DRD2 gene can have a very significant impact on overall cognitive ability [R, R, R, R, R].

For example, SNPs in this gene have been associated with many diverse aspects of cognitive function, including:

• Learning and memory [R, R, R]
• Working memory [R, R, R, R]
• Cognitive flexibility [R, R, R]
• Attention and executive function [R, R]
• Problem-solving ability and overall intelligence (IQ) [R, R]
• Creativity [R, R, R, R, R, R]
• Motivation and sensitivity to reward [R, R, R]
• Emotional intelligence (especially in women) [R]

As you can see from the list above, the variants you carry in the DRD2 can be important for many different aspects of your cognitive ability! In this post, we’ll dive more deeply into this key gene, and look at what your genetic variants can tell you about how well your brain’s dopamine system works.

The DRD2 gene helps create the D2 type of dopamine receptor. Because these receptors play a key role in determining your overall levels of dopamine, SNPs in this gene can affect many critical aspects of your cognitive ability.

One of the most highly-studied SNPs in the DRD2 gene is rs1800497, which is also commonly known as the ‘Taq1A’ polymorphism [R, R].

While many other SNPs in the DRD2 gene have also been found to influence various aspects of cognitive function — such as rs2283265, rs1076560, rs6275, rs6276, rs6277, rs6278, rs6279, and rs2514218) — these variants are often inherited together, and are highly correlated with the alleles you carry for rs1800497 [R, R, R, R].

In other words, this SNP alone can tell you a lot about how your overall DRD2 gene functions, since you can infer your genotypes for many other SNPs in this gene just by looking at this one variant!

You can see your genotype for this SNP in the table below:

The two possible alleles for this SNP are the major ‘G’ allele (also referred to as the “A2” genotype) and the minor ‘A’ allele (also referred to as the “A1” genotype) [R].

When it comes to cognitive function, it’s better to have ‘A’ alleles for this SNP (which about 53% of the general population carries one or more copies of) [R, R, R, R].

For example, a targeted gene study in 425 healthy university students found that carriers of the ‘A’ allele for this SNP were significantly better at solving “insight” problems. Insight problems are basically specially-designed riddles that psychologists use to measure not only peoples’ general cognitive ability, but also their ability to think creatively. In other words, this study found that the ‘A’ allele not only made people better at problem-solving in general, but especially in contexts where they had to think “outside the box” [R]!

(If you’re curious, an example of one of the insight problems used in this study is: “Lan and Hong were born on the same day of the same month of the same year to the same mother and the same father—yet they are not twins. How is that possible?” If you want to take a minute to mull it over without having it spoiled for you, you can find the answer at the bottom of this post!)

Additionally, another targeted gene study found that carriers of one or more minor ‘A’ alleles for rs1800497 showed significantly greater improvement in working memory after completing a cognitive training program. While people of all genotypes benefited from the cognitive training, carriers of the ‘A’ allele showed improvements that were approximately 75-80% greater than those with the ‘CC’ genotype [R].

Many other studies have also linked the minor ‘A’ allele of rs1800497 with a number of significant advantages, such as:

• Better executive functioning [R]
• Enhanced working memory [R]
• Increased ability to learn [R]
• Increased motivation and overall sensitivity to rewards [R, R]

Many studies have found that when it comes to several important aspects of cognitive function, people with the minor ‘A’ allele for rs1800497 tend to perform better than people with the major ‘G’ allele.

So, your genotype for this SNP is clearly important for many different cognitive abilities — but what exactly is the difference between having a good or bad genotype in terms of how your dopamine system works?

The ‘A’ (“A1”) allele of rs1800497 has been linked to lower number of D2 receptors, as well as lower activity (“binding availability”) of these dopamine receptors [R, R, R, R, R, R, R, R, R].

Similarly, the beneficial alleles of other SNPs that are linked with this SNP — such as rs1076560, rs6276 and rs6277 — are also associated with having lower numbers of D2 receptors compared to people with the risk alleles [R, R, R].

Because D2 receptors are inhibitory, this suggests that people with beneficial variants in DRD2 probably have overall higher dopamine activity levels (since their dopamine neurons are less inhibited by D2 receptors) [R, R, R].

This interpretation is further backed up by studies showing that the beneficial ‘A’ allele of rs1800497 enhances cognitive function by elevating dopamine levels [R, R].

Because the DRD2 gene is involved in creating inhibitory dopamine receptors, the benefits associated with the ‘A’ allele of rs1800497 most likely stem from having fewer D2 receptors, which increases the overall levels of dopamine in the brain.