Deficient reward functioning, including reward-related personality, is implicated in depression’s etiology. A dopaminergic genetic multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS) has previously been associated with neural reward responsivity but, despite theoretical basis, has not been studied with reward-related personality. Such research is needed to elucidate associations between genetic variation and reward-related personality in a developmentally sensitive population. In the present study, we examined associations between dopaminergic MGPS’s and self-report reward-related personality in two young adolescent samples aged 10–15 years old (Sample 1: N = 100 girls, 82% White, 18% Other; Sample 2: N = 141, 65 girls, 76 boys, 89.36% White, 10.64% Other) using an established MGPS and an augmented MGPS. A “mini” meta-analysis synthesized results across samples. In Sample 1, an exploratory mediation analysis intended to gauge effect size for future work tested a path between the MGPS and depression through significant reward traits. In each independent sample, both MGPS’s showed significant associations with sensation-seeking but not social drive, a pattern that persisted following correction. Effect sizes of novel variants were at least as robust as established variants, suggesting their added utility. Additionally, the exploratory mediation analysis suggested no noteworthy indirect effect, but a small (R² = 0.022), statistically non-significant direct effect of the MGPS predicting prospective depressive symptoms. Results suggest that dopaminergic genetic variation is associated with the reward-related personality trait of sensation seeking but not social drive. Additional work is needed to probe whether sensation seeking may be a path through which this genetic variation confers depression risk.

奖赏功能不足，包括与奖赏相关的人格，与抑郁症的病因有关。多巴胺能遗传多位点遗传谱评分 (MGPS) 以前曾与神经奖励反应相关，但尽管有理论基础，但尚未与奖励相关人格进行过研究。需要此类研究来阐明发育敏感人群中遗传变异与奖励相关人格之间的关联。在本研究中，我们在两个 10-15 岁的青少年样本（样本 1：N  = 100 名女孩，82% 白人，18% 其他；样本 2：N = 141，65 名女孩，76 名男孩，89.36% 白人，10.64% 其他）使用已建立的 MGPS 和增强的 MGPS。“迷你”荟萃分析综合了样本的结果。在样本 1 中，旨在衡量未来工作影响大小的探索性中介分析通过显着的奖励特征测试了 MGPS 和抑郁之间的路径。在每个独立样本中，两个 MGPS 都显示出与寻求感觉而非社交驱动力的显着关联，这种模式在修正后持续存在。新变体的影响大小至少与已建立的变体一样强大，表明它们具有额外的效用。此外，探索性中介分析表明没有值得注意的间接影响，但很小（R ² = 0.022)，MGPS 预测预期抑郁症状的统计上不显着的直接影响。结果表明，多巴胺能遗传变异与寻求感觉的奖励相关人格特征有关，但与社会驱动无关。还需要做更多的工作来探讨寻求感觉是否可能是这种遗传变异赋予抑郁症风险的途径。