title: KIBRA polymorphism is related to enhanced memory and elevated hippocampal processing.
abstract: Several studies have linked the KIBRA rs17070145 T polymorphism to superior episodic memory in healthy humans. One study investigated the effect of KIBRA on brain activation patterns (Papassotiropoulos et al., 2006) and observed increased hippocampal activation in noncarriers of the T allele during retrieval. Noncarriers were interpreted to need more hippocampal activation to reach the same performance level as T carriers. Using large behavioral (N = 2230) and fMRI (N = 83) samples, we replicated the KIBRA effect on episodic memory performance, but found increased hippocampal activation in T carriers during episodic retrieval. There was no evidence of compensatory brain activation in noncarriers within the hippocampal region. In the main fMRI sample, T carriers performed better than noncarriers during scanning but, importantly, the difference in hippocampus activation remained after post hoc matching according to performance, sex, and age (N = 64). These findings link enhanced memory performance in KIBRA T allele carriers to elevated hippocampal functioning, rather than to neural compensation in noncarriers.
authors: Department of Integrative Medical Biology (Physiology) and Umeå Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Umeå University, 90187 Umeå, Sweden. Karolina.kauppi@physiol.umu.se
authors: Karolina
authors: K
authors: Kauppi
authors: Lars-Göran
authors: LG
authors: Nilsson
authors: Rolf
authors: R
authors: Adolfsson
authors: Elias
authors: E
authors: Eriksson
authors: Lars
authors: L
authors: Nyberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000483:Alleles; D005260:Female; D006580:Genetic Carrier Screening; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010750:Phosphoproteins / Q000235:genetics*; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; D010750:Phosphoproteins; C513637:WWC1 protein, human