title: A 9-nucleotide Ins/Del in ADRA2B modulates orientation of attention to facial expressions and emotional words.
abstract: Norepinephrine is involved in the arousal of attention and the treatment of affective disorders. Therefore, we hypothesized that adrenergic receptors underpinned individual differences in attention regulation and emotional processes of healthy populations. Here, we investigated to what extent the expression of ADRA2B, an adrenergic receptor, modulated attention regulation and emotional processes. We evaluated orientation of attention, emotion regulation, and pleasantness ratings of expressions and words in 665 college students, and then genotyped the +901 Ins/Del variants in ADRA2B of these participants. The results indicated that +901 Ins/Del significantly modulated orientation of attention to facial expressions and emotional words, such that the Del allele facilitated reorientation to the originally attended locations. However, this polymorphism exerted no significant effects on emotional regulation of attention and pleasantness ratings of emotional stimulus. These findings suggest that ADRA2B is closely related to the individual difference in human attention orientation, but not to the individual difference in emotional processing.
authors.affiliation: aLaboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, College of Medical, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang bKey Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, Northwest University, Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shoumin
authors.forename: Gong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pingyuan
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: She
authors.forename: Du
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kunpeng
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haijun
authors.forename: Zhang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Peizhe
authors.forename: Zhang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fuchang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D017353:Gene Deletion; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D018341:Receptors, Adrenergic, alpha-2 / Q000235:genetics*; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D018341:Receptors, Adrenergic, alpha-2