title: COMT Val158Met polymorphism interacts with stressful life events and parental warmth to influence decision making.
abstract: Both genetic and environmental factors have been shown to influence decision making, but their relative contributions and interactions are not well understood. The present study aimed to reveal possible gene-environment interactions on decision making in a large healthy sample. Specifically, we examined how the frequently studied COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism interacted with an environmental risk factor (i.e., stressful life events) and a protective factor (i.e., parental warmth) to influence affective decision making as measured by the Iowa Gambling Task. We found that stressful life events acted as a risk factor for poor IGT performance (i.e., high reward sensitivity) among Met carriers, whereas parental warmth acted as a protective factor for good IGT performance (i.e., higher IGT score) among Val/Val homozygotes. These results shed some new light on gene-environment interactions in decision making, which could potentially help us understand the underlying etiology of several psychiatric disorders associated with decision making impairment.
authors.affiliation: Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA. qinghuah@usc.edu
authors.forename: Qinghua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Gui
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.forename: Chuansheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhong-Lin
authors.initials: ZL
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Chunhui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xuemei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.forename: Yuyun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Bi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Robert K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Moyzis
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bechara
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002394:Catechol O-Methyltransferase / Q000235:genetics*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling; D005717:Games, Experimental; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D012307:Risk Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D002394:Catechol O-Methyltransferase