Association study of a functional MAOA-uVNTR gene polymorphism and cognitive function in healthy females.
Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) is a mitochondrial enzyme involved in the degradation of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine and these neurotransmitters are hypothesized to be involved in the cognitive function of humans. This study of a cohort of 191 healthy young Chinese females attempts to utilize the intelligence quotient (IQ), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and P300 event-related potentials as cognitive assessments for testing the relationship between the polymorphism with a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) in the upstream regulatory region (MAOA-uVNTR) and cognition. The results demonstrate that subjects bearing the 4/4-repeat genotype have a significantly higher full IQ than subjects bearing the 3/3-repeat genotype. However, there is no significant association between this MAOA-uVNTR polymorphism and the WCST and P300. Our study shows that the MAOA-uVNTR genetic polymorphism plays a role in the IQ; however, this may be a chance finding as the result was negative after using the Bonferroni adjustment. Therefore, we suggest that our study should be replicated and that the testing method, sex, disease and ethnicity should also be considered in future studies.
Yu' s Psychiatric Clinic, Taiwan, ROC.
Younger W-Y
YW
Yu
Shih-Jen
SJ
Tsai
Chen-Jee
CJ
Hong
Ming-Chao
MC
Chen
Chih-Wei
CW
Yang
Tai-Jui
TJ
Chen
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000502:physiology*; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics*; D008995:Monoamine Oxidase / Q000235:genetics*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000096:biosynthesis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences
D012333:RNA, Messenger; D008995:Monoamine Oxidase