Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Behav Brain Funct. 2010 Sep 16;6:54. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-6-54.
Attention deficits belong to the main cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia and come along with altered neural activity in previously described cerebral networks. Given the high heritability of schizophrenia the question arises if impaired function of these networks is modulated by susceptibility genes and detectable in healthy risk allele carriers.
The present event-related fMRI study investigated the effect of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1018381 of the DTNBP1 (dystrobrevin-binding protein 1) gene on brain activity in 80 subjects while performing the attention network test (ANT). In this reaction time task three domains of attention are probed simultaneously: alerting, orienting and executive control of attention.
Risk allele carriers showed impaired performance in the executive control condition associated with reduced neural activity in the left superior frontal gyrus [Brodmann area (BA) 9]. Risk allele carriers did not show alterations in the alerting and orienting networks.
BA 9 is a key region of schizophrenia pathology and belongs to a network that has been shown previously to be involved in impaired executive control mechanisms in schizophrenia. Our results identified the impact of DTNBP1 on the development of a specific attention deficit via modulation of a left prefrontal network.
注意缺陷属于精神分裂症的主要认知症状，伴随着先前描述的大脑网络中神经活动的改变。鉴于精神分裂症的高遗传性，人们不禁要问，这些网络的功能障碍是否受到易感基因的调节，并且在健康的风险等位基因携带者中是否可以检测到。
本项事件相关 fMRI 研究在 80 名受试者进行注意网络测试（ANT）时，调查了 DTNBP1（肌营养不良结合蛋白 1）基因的单核苷酸多态性（SNP）rs1018381 对大脑活动的影响。在这个反应时任务中，同时探测三个注意力域：警觉、定向和注意力的执行控制。
风险等位基因携带者在执行控制条件下表现出受损的表现，与左额上回[布罗德曼区（BA）9]的神经活动减少有关。风险等位基因携带者在警觉和定向网络中没有表现出改变。
BA 9 是精神分裂症病理学的一个关键区域，属于先前已显示与精神分裂症执行控制机制受损有关的网络。我们的结果通过调节左前额叶网络，确定了 DTNBP1 对特定注意缺陷发展的影响。
