rs1800497
Dopamine receptor density, the Taq1A variant
What this position does
The reward system evolved to make you chase scarce things: sugar, fat, salt, status, novelty. This variant is associated with fewer dopamine D2 receptors in the striatum, and it has been studied in addiction and in the pull of highly palatable food. It is the mismatch argument in a single gene.
Reward system. Shaped by scarcity, replaced by abundance. This is one of the variants that differs sharply between human populations, because something in the environment made one version worth having.
Pressures with no evolutionary history
Tobacco is about four hundred years old outside the Americas, and the attention economy is about fifteen. Nothing in your DNA is an adaptation to either. These variants are ancient machinery being pulled by something new.
What changed: The screen, the last fifteen years. Light at midnight and an attention market. Smartphone ownership among American adults went from 35 per cent in 2011 to 91 per cent in 2025, which is not enough time for anything in your DNA to have responded.
Not an adaptation to anything. The thing this variant responds to arrived far too recently to have shaped it. Ancient machinery, new pull.
Spiral Staircase, chapter 30: The Attention Economy and the Boredom Deficit Spiral Staircase is written by the same author as this site.
What each result means
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies of the effect version GG | You have the common version on both copies Typical D2 receptor density. |
| One copy AG | You carry one copy Associated with roughly 10 to 15 per cent fewer D2 receptors in imaging studies. |
| Two copies AA | You carry two copies Associated with the largest reduction. It has been linked to addiction risk in many studies, with a lot of variation between them, so treat it as a leaning rather than a finding. |
Worth knowing. This variant is not actually in DRD2 but in the neighbouring ANKK1 gene, which is a good reminder that a named association is not the same as a mechanism.
How common each version is
| Ancestry group | A (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 38.5% | |
| American | 31.1% | |
| East Asian | 40.6% | |
| European | 18.8% | |
| South Asian | 31.5% |
1000 Genomes Project phase 3, via Ensembl, retrieved 2026-09-23. These groupings are coarse and flatten a great deal of internal diversity, particularly within Africa. A variant being common somewhere tells you where a piece of your ancestry probably comes from, and nothing else.
How many people carry each result
| Ancestry group | GG | AG | AA |
|---|---|---|---|
| African | 243 / 661 | 327 / 661 | 91 / 661 |
| European | 337 / 503 | 143 / 503 | 23 / 503 |
| East Asian | 179 / 504 | 241 / 504 | 84 / 504 |
| South Asian | 236 / 489 | 198 / 489 | 55 / 489 |
| American | 171 / 347 | 136 / 347 | 40 / 347 |
Counts of people, not modelled frequencies: every one of the 2,504 individuals sequenced by the 1000 Genomes Project phase 3, tallied by the genotype they carry. Deriving these from allele frequencies instead would assume random mating inside each group and undercount the homozygotes.
How to find out which you have
If you have taken a test with 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA, TellMeGen or Living DNA, this position is very likely already in the raw data file they gave you. You do not need another test.
One thing to watch if you look it up by hand: testing companies report some positions from one DNA strand and some from the other, and the file does not say which. Read the letters as they appear and you will get the opposite of the truth for some positions. Sequencings resolves that automatically.
Source
Coordinates and allele pair verified against Ensembl GRCh37. Direction of effect verified against VEP protein consequences or 1000 Genomes population frequency. Category: Population adaptation.
Common questions
What is rs1800497?
rs1800497 is a position in the ANKK1 gene on chromosome 11. The reward system evolved to make you chase scarce things: sugar, fat, salt, status, novelty. This variant is associated with fewer dopamine D2 receptors in the striatum, and it has been studied in addiction and in the pull of highly palatable food. It is the mismatch argument in a single gene.
What does it mean if I have AA at rs1800497?
You carry two copies. Associated with the largest reduction. It has been linked to addiction risk in many studies, with a lot of variation between them, so treat it as a leaning rather than a finding.
What does it mean if I have GG at rs1800497?
You have the common version on both copies. Typical D2 receptor density.
How do I find out my rs1800497 genotype?
If you have taken a home DNA test, this position is very likely in the raw data file you were given. Sequencings reads that file in your browser without uploading it, and resolves which DNA strand each position was reported from, which is the step most manual lookups get wrong.
This is reference information, not medical advice, and not a diagnosis. See the medical disclaimer. Category: Population adaptation.