The study, published in the journal American Journal Psychiatry, was conducted by a team led by Karen Ersche.
The researchers aimed to identify risk factors that made a person vulnerable to developing drug dependence. They examined 50 adults with cocaine dependence together with their biological brothers and sisters who have never abused drugs, a university release said.
All participants underwent extensive assessments of their personalities, including their ways of feeling and thinking.
The researchers were also interested in negative experiences that participants may have had during childhood (to include physical, emotional or sexual abuse).
Ersche, of the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI) at the University of Cambridge, said: "It has long been known that abusive experiences during childhood have long-lasting effects on behaviour in adulthood and this was confirmed by our results.
The siblings had more troubled childhoods compared to healthy peers in the community, and we also found a direct relationship between traumatic childhoods and their personalities."
She added: "This relationship is interesting because impulsive personality traits are known to increase the risk of becoming addicted to drugs but it is not an excus drug-taking."
The childhoods of the brothers and sisters of the cocaine-dependent individuals were also traumatic, and they also exhibited higher-than-normal levels of impulsive and compulsive behaviours, but
