Socioeconomic status is associated with striatal dopamine D2/D3 receptors in healthy volunteers but not in cocaine abusers

Positron emission tomography (PET) studies in animals and humans have shown that social status is associated with striatal dopamine D2/D3 receptor (D2/D3R) availability. That is, higher social hierarchy and higher scores on questionnaires assessing social status correlated positively with striatal D2/D3R availability in animals and humans respectively. Furthermore, subordinate monkeys were vulnerable to cocaine self-administration, suggesting that alternations in social hierarchy can change D2/D3R availability and vulnerability to cocaine use. Here, we investigated whether socioeconomic status (SES) measured with the Hollingshead scale is associated with striatal D2D/3R availability using [11C]raclopride PET in 38 cocaine abusers and 42 healthy controls matched for age and education. Compared to controls, cocaine abusers showed lower D2/D3R availability in the caudate, putamen and ventral striatum (all p ≤ 0.001). Despite matching groups for education, SES scores were lower in cocaine abusers than controls (p < 0.001). In the control group only, SES scores significantly correlated with D2/D3R in caudate (r = 0.35, p = 0.024) and putamen (r = 0.39, p = 0.011) but not in ventral striatum (p = 0.61); all corrected for age. The study confirms that SES is associated with striatal D2/D3R availability in healthy human volunteers. However, reductions in D2/D3R availability in cocaine abusers may be driven by factors other than SES such as chronic cocaine exposure.