title: Emotion specific modulation of automatic amygdala responses by 5-HTTLPR genotype.
abstract: A functional polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has been reported to modulate amygdala responsiveness to negative environmental cues. However, it remains unclear whether 5-HTTLPR modulates amygdala responses specifically to negative stimuli or rather to emotionally salient stimuli in general. In 44 healthy subjects, amygdala responses to subliminally presented happy and sad facial expressions were assessed by means of fMRI at 3 Tesla. All subjects were genotyped for 5-HTTLPR and the recently discovered 5-HTT rs25531. We observed a robust emotion by genotype group interaction in the right amygdala. Risk allele carriers (S or L(G)) showed similar amygdala responses to happy faces compared to homozygous L(A)L(A) carriers but increased amygdala responses to sad faces. The right amygdala was the only anatomical region across the whole brain demonstrating this interaction at a reasonable threshold. It appears that whereas 5-HTT gene variation modulates automatic amygdala responsiveness to sad faces, no such association was found for happy faces. We conclude that 5-HTTLPR genotype predominantly impacts the central processing predominantly of negative environmental cues but not of emotionally salient stimuli in general.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Str. 11, 48149 Münster, Germany. dannlow@uni-muenster.de
authors: Udo
authors: U
authors: Dannlowski
authors: Carsten
authors: C
authors: Konrad
authors: Harald
authors: H
authors: Kugel
authors: Pienie
authors: P
authors: Zwitserlood
authors: Katharina
authors: K
authors: Domschke
authors: Sonja
authors: S
authors: Schöning
authors: Patricia
authors: P
authors: Ohrmann
authors: Jochen
authors: J
authors: Bauer
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Pyka
authors: Christa
authors: C
authors: Hohoff
authors: Weiqi
authors: W
authors: Zhang
authors: Bernhard T
authors: BT
authors: Baune
authors: Walter
authors: W
authors: Heindel
authors: Volker
authors: V
authors: Arolt
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Suslow
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D050486:Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: C493230:SLC6A4 protein, human; D050486:Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins