title: Association of neuropeptide Y promoter polymorphism (rs16147) with perceived stress and cardiac vagal outflow in humans.
abstract: Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is involved in resilience to stress, and higher vagal (parasympathetic) activity has been associated with greater stress resilience. Thus, we examined whether rs16147, a functional promoter polymorphism (C>T) of the NPY gene, could influence vagal tone during chronic high stress levels. NPY genotyping, chronic psychological stress level measurement (using the Perceived Stress Scale [PSS]), cardiac autonomic function assessment (using short-term heart rate variability [HRV]) were performed in 1123 healthy, drug-free Han Chinese participants who were divided into low- and high-PSS groups. In the high-PSS group (n = 522), the root mean square of successive heartbeat interval differences and high frequency power (both HRV indices of parasympathetic activity) were significantly increased in T/T homozygotes compared to C/C homozygotes. However, no significant between-genotype difference was found in any HRV variable in the low-PSS group (n = 601). Our results are the first to demonstrate that functional NPY variation alters chronic stress-related vagal control, suggesting a potential parasympathetic role for NPY gene in stress regulation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Hsin-An
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Family and Community Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wen-Hui
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Tieh-Ching
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.|Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: San-Yuan
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.|Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chuan-Chia
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006321:Heart / Q000294:innervation* / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009478:Neuropeptide Y / Q000235:genetics*; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000235:genetics*; D014630:Vagus Nerve / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D009478:Neuropeptide Y