Department of Psychology, Estonian Centre of Behavioural and Health Sciences, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, 50410, Tartu, Estonia.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2010 Apr;209(3):255-61. doi: 10.1007/s00213-010-1793-z. Epub 2010 Feb 26.
Platelet monoamine oxidase (MAO) activity is associated with impulsivity in clinical samples. Recently, a functional promoter polymorphism of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (NOS1) termed NOS1 ex1f-VNTR was found to have an effect on impulsivity-related traits and resulting psychopathology.
The study aims to explore the effect of both platelet MAO activity and NOS1 ex1f-VNTR genotype on impulsivity in a population-derived sample.
This study was on a non-clinical sample of adult male subjects, previously used to investigate the effect of platelet MAO activity on impulsivity-related behaviour (Paaver et al., Psychopharmacology 186:32-40, 2006). Six hundred thirty-seven male subjects were genotyped for the NOS1 ex1f-VNTR promoter polymorphism. Impulsivity was self-reported. Effects of age and smoking, known to affect platelet MAO activity, were controlled for.
No main effect of either NOS1 genotype or platelet MAO activity was present. However, significant interactions were found between effects of the NOS1 genotype and platelet MAO activity on impulsivity measures. Impulsivity and in particular the aspects of adaptive impulsivity (e.g. fast decision-making and excitement-seeking behaviour) were higher in subjects with the NOS1 ex1f-VNTR short/short genotype if they belonged to the platelet MAO medium activity (interquartile) range.
This study supports evidence for higher impulsivity in the NOS1 short/short genotype subjects and further suggests that this is present in the subset of subjects who have close to average platelet MAO activity.
血小板单胺氧化酶（MAO）活性与临床样本中的冲动性有关。最近，发现神经元型一氧化氮合酶（NOS1）的一种功能性启动子多态性NOS1 ex1f-VNTR 对冲动性相关特征和由此产生的精神病理学有影响。
本研究旨在探索血小板 MAO 活性和 NOS1 ex1f-VNTR 基因型对人群样本中冲动性的影响。
本研究基于先前用于研究血小板 MAO 活性对冲动性相关行为影响的非临床成年男性受试者样本（Paaver 等人，精神药理学 186：32-40，2006）。对 637 名男性受试者进行 NOS1 ex1f-VNTR 启动子多态性基因分型。冲动性通过自我报告进行评估。控制了已知影响血小板 MAO 活性的年龄和吸烟因素。
NOS1 基因型或血小板 MAO 活性均无主要影响。然而，NOS1 基因型和血小板 MAO 活性对冲动性测量的影响之间存在显著的相互作用。在具有 NOS1 ex1f-VNTR 短/短基因型的受试者中，如果他们属于血小板 MAO 中等活性（四分位）范围，则冲动性较高，特别是适应性冲动性方面（例如快速决策和寻求刺激行为）较高。
本研究支持 NOS1 短/短基因型受试者冲动性较高的证据，并进一步表明，这种情况存在于血小板 MAO 活性接近平均水平的受试者亚组中。
