title: The association between romantic relationship status and 5-HT1A gene in young adults.
abstract: What factors determine whether or not a young adult will fall in love? Sociological surveys and psychological studies have shown that non-genetic factors, such as socioeconomic status, external appearance, and personality attributes, are crucial components in romantic relationship formation. Here we demonstrate that genetic variants also contribute to romantic relationship formation. As love-related behaviors are associated with serotonin levels in the brain, this study investigated to what extent a polymorphism (C-1019G, rs6295) of 5-HT1A gene is related to relationship status in 579 Chinese Han people. We found that 50.4% of individuals with the CC genotype and 39.0% with CG/GG genotype were in romantic relationship. Logistic regression analysis indicated that the C-1019G polymorphism was significantly associated with the odds of being single both before and after controlling for socioeconomic status, external appearance, religious beliefs, parenting style, and depressive symptoms. These findings provide, for the first time, direct evidence for the genetic contribution to romantic relationship formation.
authors.affiliation: Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Jinting
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: 1] Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [2] Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471003, China.
authors.forename: Pingyuan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: 1] Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [2] Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [3] PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000483:Alleles; D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D016015:Logistic Models; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D017533:Marital Status / Q000208:ethnology; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D044282:Receptor, Serotonin, 5-HT1A / Q000235:genetics*; D012923:Social Class; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D044282:Receptor, Serotonin, 5-HT1A