The catechol-o-methyltransferase Val158Met polymorphism modulates the intrinsic functional network centrality of the parahippocampal cortex in healthy subjects

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 10105
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xiaolong, Li, Jin, Qin, Wen, Yu, Chunshui, Liu, Bing, Jiang, Tianzi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 09.06.2015; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 45/23; 59/36; 631/114/1564; 631/208/1515; 631/378/2583; Adolescent; Adult; Age; Brain; Brain mapping; Catechol; Catechol O-methyltransferase; Catechol O-Methyltransferase - genetics; Cerebral Cortex - metabolism; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition - physiology; Education; Female; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Gender; Gene mapping; Gene polymorphism; Genotype; Genotype & phenotype; Genotypes; Healthy Volunteers; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Laboratories; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Memory; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Methyltransferase; multidisciplinary; Neural networks; Parahippocampal gyrus; Parahippocampal Gyrus - metabolism; Parahippocampal Gyrus - physiology; Polymorphism; Polymorphism, Genetic - genetics; Science; Short term memory; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep10105

The influence of catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) Val 158 Met on brain activation and functional connectivity has been widely reported. However, voxel-wise effects of this genotype on resting-state brain networks remain unclear. Here, we used resting-state fMRI and eigenvector centrality to examine the effects of COMT Val 158 Met genotypes on the connection patterns of the brain network and working memory (WM) in healthy, young Val/Val and Met carrier subjects. There were significant differences in the performance level on the 2-back WM task between the different COMT genotypes: Val/Val individuals exhibited a higher correct rate compared to the Met carriers. A two-sample t test was used to examine the differences in the eigenvector centrality maps, using age and gender as covariates of no interest, between the Val/Val and Met carriers. We found that the Val/Val individuals exhibited significantly higher eigenvector centrality compared to the Met carriers in the left parahippocampal cortex. Furthermore, a significantly positive correlation between the mean eigenvector centrality of the significant cluster and the correct rate of the 2-back WM task was observed. By using a voxel-wise data-driven method, our findings may provide plausible implications regarding individual differences in the genetic contribution of COMT Val158Met to the brain network and cognition.