Avsar Orcun, Kuskucu Aysegul, Sancak Seda, Genc Ece
Department of Biotechnology, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Department of Medical Genetics, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Neurosci Lett. 2017 Jul 27;654:28-32. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2017.06.023. Epub 2017 Jun 16.
Dopamine (DA) is the main modulator of the brain reward system and significantly regulates food intake. The idea that obesity is a neurobiological disease rather than a metabolic disorder, is the basis of the study. Changes in dopamine neurotransmission affect the brain reward system in a direct way. Furthermore, changes in the reward system influence the eating behavior in human. The enzymes monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) terminate the DA function by metabolizing it. In our study, the control group which included 214 individuals and 234 subjects with obesity were investigated for MAOA-u VNTR and COMT (rs4680) polymorphisms. In our study, statistical analysis has showed that in control group Val/Met COMT genotype was significantly higher compared with the patient group (p=0.04). When the groups were compared in terms of eating behavior, the number of the subjects who ate for reward was significantly higher in patient group (p=0.03). Our findings demonstrated that eating behavior might have an effect on obesity and dopaminergic polymorphisms could be risk factors for the development of obesity in Turkish population.
