Background
The majority of affective psychopathology is rooted early in life and first emerges
during childhood and adolescence. However, little is known about how genetic vulnerability
affects brain structure and function in childhood since the vast majority of studies
published so far have been conducted on adult participants. The present investigation
examined for the first time the effects of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) valine (val) 158 methionine (met) (val158met) polymorphism,
which has been shown to moderate predisposition to negative mood and affective disorders,
on brain structure and function in children.
Methods
Voxel-based morphometry and functional magnetic resonance imaging were used to measure
gray matter volume and emotional reactivity in 50 children aged between 10 and 12
years. We tested the hypothesis that met158 allele affects structural brain development
and confers heightened reactivity within the affective frontolimbic circuit in children.
Results
The met158 allele was positively associated with gray matter volume in the left hippocampal
head where genotype accounted for 59% of interindividual variance. In addition, the
met158 allele was positively associated with neuronal responses to fearful relative
to neutral facial expressions in the right parahippocampal gyrus where genotype accounted
for 14% of the interindividual variance.
Conclusions
These results indicate that the met158 allele is associated with increased gray matter
volume and heightened reactivity during emotional processing within the limbic system
in children as young as 10 to 12 years of age. These findings are consistent with
the notion that genetic factors affect brain function to moderate vulnerability to
affective psychopathology from childhood.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 12, 2009
Accepted:
January 30,
2009
Received in revised form:
January 30,
2009
Received:
September 3,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
