Lamb Yvette N, McKay Nicole S, Singh Shrimal S, Waldie Karen E, Kirk Ian J
School of Psychology, The University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand.
Front Psychol. 2016 Jun 27;7:965. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00965. eCollection 2016.
The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism affects the breakdown of synaptic dopamine. Consequently, this polymorphism has been associated with a variety of neurophysiological and behavioral outcomes. Some of the effects have been found to be sex-specific and it appears estrogen may act to down-regulate the activity of the COMT enzyme. The dopaminergic system has been implicated in face recognition, a form of cognition for which a female advantage has typically been reported. This study aimed to investigate potential joint effects of sex and COMT genotype on face recognition. A sample of 142 university students was genotyped and assessed using the Faces I subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale - Third Edition (WMS-III). A significant two-way interaction between sex and COMT genotype on face recognition performance was found. Of the male participants, COMT val homozygotes and heterozygotes had significantly lower scores than met homozygotes. Scores did not differ between genotypes for female participants. While male val homozygotes had significantly lower scores than female val homozygotes, no sex differences were observed in the heterozygotes and met homozygotes. This study contributes to the accumulating literature documenting sex-specific effects of the COMT polymorphism by demonstrating a COMT-sex interaction for face recognition, and is consistent with a role for dopamine in face recognition.
儿茶酚-O-甲基转移酶（COMT）基因val158met多态性会影响突触多巴胺的分解。因此，这种多态性与多种神经生理和行为结果相关。已发现其中一些影响具有性别特异性，而且雌激素似乎可能会下调COMT酶的活性。多巴胺能系统与面部识别有关，而面部识别是一种认知形式，通常报道女性在这方面具有优势。本研究旨在调查性别和COMT基因型对面部识别的潜在联合影响。对142名大学生样本进行了基因分型，并使用韦氏记忆量表第三版（WMS-III）的面孔I分测验进行了评估。研究发现性别和COMT基因型在面部识别表现上存在显著的双向交互作用。在男性参与者中，COMT基因val纯合子和杂合子的得分显著低于met纯合子。女性参与者的不同基因型得分没有差异。虽然男性val纯合子的得分显著低于女性val纯合子，但在杂合子和met纯合子中未观察到性别差异。本研究通过证明面部识别中存在COMT-性别交互作用，为记录COMT多态性的性别特异性影响的文献积累做出了贡献，并且与多巴胺在面部识别中的作用相一致。
