title: Associations between the tumor necrosis factor alpha gene (-308G→A) and event-related potential indices of attention and mental rotation.
abstract: The tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is a cytokine that exerts neuroprotective and neurodegenerative effects. While some research suggests enhancing effects of the TNF-α gene (TNF-α -308G→A) on cognitive function, further research is needed to clarify the association between the TNF-α gene and specific areas of cognitive performance including their neurophysiological correlates. In this study we examine association of the TNF-α -308G→A single nucleotide polymorphism (rs1800629) with attention and mental rotation performance in an event-related potential (ERP) study in healthy participants (n=67). The results show that carriers of the -308 A allele display elevated attentional processes (i.e. a stronger N1) as compared to the GG genotype group. Mental rotation performance varied across genotypes when demands on mental rotation were high. Here, carriers of the -308 A allele performed better than the GG genotype group. This is paralleled by the neurophysiological data showing genotype-dependent variations in parietal positivities only under the condition of high demands on mental rotation. The finding of enhanced attentional and mental rotation performance in A allele carriers supports recent findings that the A allele of this single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) enhances cognitive performance on a general measure of cognitive processing speed.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Biopsychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. christian.beste@rub.de
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beste
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heil
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Domschke
authors.forename: B T
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Baune
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Konrad
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000483:Alleles; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha