Laboratory of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurosciences, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa Pisa, Italy.
Laboratory of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurosciences, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa Pisa, Italy ; Language and Genetics Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Jan 6;7:929. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00929.
Higher brain dopamine content depending on lower activity of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT) in subjects with high hypnotizability scores (highs) has been considered responsible for their attentional characteristics. However, the results of the previous genetic studies on association between hypnotizability and the COMT single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4680 (Val(158)Met) were inconsistent. Here, we used a selective genotyping approach to re-evaluate the association between hypnotizability and COMT in the context of a two-SNP haplotype analysis, considering not only the Val(158)Met polymorphism, but also the closely located rs4818 SNP. An Italian sample of 53 highs, 49 low hypnotizable subjects (lows), and 57 controls, were genotyped for a segment of 805 bp of the COMT gene, including Val(158)Met and the closely located rs4818 SNP. Our selective genotyping approach had 97.1% power to detect the previously reported strongest association at the significance level of 5%. We found no evidence of association at the SNP, haplotype, and diplotype levels. Thus, our results challenge the dopamine-based theory of hypnosis and indirectly support recent neuropsychological and neurophysiological findings reporting the lack of any association between hypnotizability and focused attention abilities.
高催眠易感性个体的大脑多巴胺含量较高，这与儿茶酚-O-甲基转移酶（COMT）活性较低有关，这被认为是其注意力特征的原因。然而，先前关于催眠易感性与 COMT 单核苷酸多态性（SNP）rs4680（Val(158)Met）之间关联的遗传研究结果并不一致。在这里，我们使用选择性基因分型方法，在双 SNP 单倍型分析的背景下重新评估催眠易感性与 COMT 之间的关联，不仅考虑到 Val(158)Met 多态性，还考虑到紧密相关的 rs4818 SNP。我们对意大利的 53 名高催眠易感性个体（ highs ）、49 名低催眠易感性个体（ lows ）和 57 名对照者进行了 COMT 基因的 805 bp 片段的选择性基因分型，包括 Val(158)Met 和紧密相关的 rs4818 SNP。我们的选择性基因分型方法在 5%的显著性水平下有 97.1%的能力来检测到先前报道的最强关联。我们在 SNP、单倍型和二倍型水平上都没有发现关联的证据。因此，我们的结果对基于多巴胺的催眠理论提出了挑战，间接地支持了最近的神经心理学和神经生理学研究结果，这些结果报告了催眠易感性与集中注意力能力之间没有任何关联。
