Startin Carla M, Fiorentini Chiara, de Haan Michelle, Skuse David H
Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
PLoS One. 2015 Jun 24;10(6):e0131604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131604. eCollection 2015.
Females outperform males on many social cognitive tasks. X-linked genes may contribute to this sex difference. Males possess one X chromosome, while females possess two X chromosomes. Functional variations in X-linked genes are therefore likely to impact more on males than females. Previous studies of X-monosomic women with Turner syndrome suggest a genetic association with facial fear recognition abilities at Xp11.3, specifically at a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP rs7055196) within the EFHC2 gene. Based on a strong hypothesis, we investigated an association between variation at SNP rs7055196 and facial fear recognition and theory of mind abilities in males. As predicted, males possessing the G allele had significantly poorer facial fear detection accuracy and theory of mind abilities than males possessing the A allele (with SNP variant accounting for up to 4.6% of variance). Variation in the X-linked EFHC2 gene at SNP rs7055196 is therefore associated with social cognitive abilities in males.
在许多社会认知任务中，女性的表现优于男性。X连锁基因可能导致了这种性别差异。男性拥有一条X染色体，而女性拥有两条X染色体。因此，X连锁基因的功能变异对男性的影响可能比对女性的影响更大。先前对患有特纳综合征的X单体女性的研究表明，在Xp11.3处，特别是在EFHC2基因内的一个单核苷酸多态性（SNP rs7055196）与面部恐惧识别能力存在遗传关联。基于一个有力的假设，我们研究了SNP rs7055196的变异与男性面部恐惧识别及心理理论能力之间的关联。正如预期的那样，携带G等位基因的男性在面部恐惧检测准确性和心理理论能力方面明显比携带A等位基因的男性差（该SNP变异占方差的比例高达4.6%）。因此，X连锁EFHC2基因在SNP rs7055196处的变异与男性的社会认知能力相关。
