Department of Biopsychology, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.
Neuroscience. 2010 Mar 10;166(1):178-84. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.12.022. Epub 2009 Dec 24.
Response inhibition is a basic executive function which is dysfunctional in various basal ganglia diseases. The brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor (BDNF) plays an important pathophysiological role in these diseases. In the current study we examined the functional relevance of the BDNF val66met polymorphism for response inhibition processes in 57 healthy human subjects using event-related potentials (ERPs), i.e. the Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3, which likely reflect different aspects of inhibition. Our results support the pre-motor inhibition theory of the Nogo-N2. We show that the BDNF val66met polymorphism selectively modulates the Nogo-N2. Response inhibition was better in the val/met-met/met group, since this group committed fewer false alarms, and their Nogo-N2 was larger, compared to the val/val group. This is the first study showing that met alleles of the BDNF val66met polymorphism confer an advantage for a specific cognitive function. We propose a neuronal model how this advantage gets manifest on a neuronal level.
反应抑制是一种基本的执行功能，在各种基底神经节疾病中存在功能障碍。脑源性神经营养因子（BDNF）在这些疾病中起着重要的病理生理作用。在目前的研究中，我们使用事件相关电位（ERPs），即 Nogo-N2 和 Nogo-P3，检查了 BDNF val66met 多态性对 57 名健康人类受试者反应抑制过程的功能相关性，这可能反映了抑制的不同方面。我们的结果支持了 Nogo-N2 的前运动抑制理论。我们表明，BDNF val66met 多态性选择性地调节 Nogo-N2。与 val/val 组相比，val/met-met/met 组的反应抑制更好，因为该组的假警报更少，且其 Nogo-N2 更大。这是第一项表明 BDNF val66met 多态性的 met 等位基因为特定认知功能提供优势的研究。我们提出了一个神经元模型，说明这种优势如何在神经元水平上表现出来。
