Karlsson Sara, Henningsson Susanne, Hovey Daniel, Zettergren Anna, Jonsson Lina, Cortes Diana S, Melke Jonas, Laukka Petri, Fischer Håkan, Westberg Lars
Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, and.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Jun;11(6):877-83. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw010. Epub 2016 Mar 8.
The ability to recognize the identity of faces and voices is essential for social relationships. Although the heritability of social memory is high, knowledge about the contributing genes is sparse. Since sex differences and rodent studies support an influence of estrogens and androgens on social memory, polymorphisms in the estrogen and androgen receptor genes (ESR1, ESR2, AR) are candidates for this trait. Recognition of faces and vocal sounds, separately and combined, was investigated in 490 subjects, genotyped for 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ESR1, four in ESR2 and one in the AR Four of the associations survived correction for multiple testing: women carrying rare alleles of the three ESR2 SNPs, rs928554, rs1271572 and rs1256030, in linkage disequilibrium with each other, displayed superior face recognition compared with non-carriers. Furthermore, the uncommon genotype of the ESR1 SNP rs2504063 was associated with better recognition of identity through vocal sounds, also specifically in women. This study demonstrates evidence for associations in women between face recognition and variation in ESR2, and recognition of identity through vocal sounds and variation in ESR1. These results suggest that estrogen receptors may regulate social memory function in humans, in line with what has previously been established in mice.
识别面孔和声音的能力对于社会关系至关重要。尽管社会记忆的遗传度很高，但关于其相关基因的了解却很少。由于性别差异和啮齿动物研究支持雌激素和雄激素对社会记忆的影响，雌激素和雄激素受体基因（ESR1、ESR2、AR）中的多态性是该性状的候选基因。对490名受试者进行了面孔和声音识别（分别及联合识别）的研究，这些受试者针对ESR1中的10个单核苷酸多态性（SNP）、ESR2中的4个SNP以及AR中的1个SNP进行了基因分型。其中四个关联在多重检验校正后仍然显著：携带彼此处于连锁不平衡状态的ESR2三个SNP（rs928554、rs1271572和rs1256030）罕见等位基因的女性，与非携带者相比，表现出更优的面孔识别能力。此外，ESR1 SNP rs2504063的罕见基因型也与通过声音更好地识别身份有关，同样特别体现在女性中。这项研究证明了女性中面孔识别与ESR2变异之间以及通过声音识别身份与ESR1变异之间存在关联。这些结果表明，雌激素受体可能调节人类的社会记忆功能，这与之前在小鼠中所证实的情况一致。
