Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Neurobiol Aging. 2011 Jun;32(6):1159.e1-5. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2011.02.006. Epub 2011 Apr 1.
Humans carrying the prevalent rs9939609 A allele of the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene are more susceptible to developing obesity than noncarries. Recently, polymorphisms in the FTO gene of elderly subjects have also been linked to a reduced volume in the frontal lobe as well as increased risk for incident Alzheimer disease. However, so far there is no evidence directly linking the FTO gene to functional cognitive processes. Here we examined whether the FTO rs9939609 A allele is associated with verbal fluency performance in 355 elderly men at the age of 82 years who have no clinically apparent cognitive impairment. Retrieval of verbal memory is a good surrogate measure reflecting frontal lobe functioning. Here we found that obese and overweight but not normal weight FTO A allele carriers showed a lower performance on verbal fluency than non-carriers (homozygous for rs9939609 T allele). This effect was not observed for a measure of general cognitive performance (i.e., Mini-Mental State Examination score), thereby indicating that the FTO gene primarily affects frontal lobe-dependent cognitive processes in elderly men.
携带肥胖相关基因（FTO）rs9939609 位点 A 等位基因的人比非携带者更容易患肥胖症。最近，老年人群体中 FTO 基因的多态性也与额叶体积减小以及阿尔茨海默病发病风险增加有关。然而，迄今为止，没有证据直接将 FTO 基因与功能性认知过程联系起来。在这里，我们研究了 FTO rs9939609 A 等位基因是否与 355 名 82 岁、无明显认知障碍的老年男性的言语流畅性表现有关。言语记忆的恢复是反映额叶功能的良好替代指标。在这里，我们发现肥胖和超重但体重正常的 FTO A 等位基因携带者在言语流畅性测试上的表现低于非携带者（rs9939609T 等位基因纯合子）。这一效应在一般认知表现的衡量标准（即简易精神状态检查评分）上并没有观察到，这表明 FTO 基因主要影响老年男性依赖额叶的认知过程。
