The COMT Val158Met polymorphism: Individual differences in visual N1 and error-related negativity
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1
The University of Auckland, School of Psychology, New Zealand
Background: The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism is a commonly occurring genetic variation that affects catecholamine neurotransmitter levels in the human brain, which most notably includes frontal dopamine. In recent years, researchers have associated COMT Val158Met with inter-individual differences in cognitive control, and susceptibility to psychopathology. COMT Met/Met carriers are hypothesized to have high synaptic dopamine activity and poorer cognitive flexibility relative to Val/Val carriers. The aim of the current study is to investigate how the COMT Val158Met polymorphism may influence the event-related potentials (ERPs) linked to fear processing and conflict monitoring. Methods: A sample of young adults living in New Zealand was genotyped for the COMT Val158Met polymorphism. A novel Faces Go/No-Go task, which featured neutral and angry faces as the visual stimuli, was used to examine the global field power peak amplitude for the N1 visual potential and the error-related negativity (ERN). Results: Emerging trends in the data indicate that COMT Met/Met individuals tended to have larger N1 amplitudes to the visual processing of angry faces, and conversely, they tended to have smaller ERN amplitudes after committing task errors compared to the two other groups. Discussion: The present study contributes to the understanding of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism as it affects frontal control mechanisms. Thus far, our findings support the existing hypotheses that the COMT Met/Met variant relates to poorer cognitive flexibility and greater susceptibility to social anxiety. However, replication with a larger sample will be needed to determine if the trends can reach statistical significance.
Keywords:
COMT Val158Met polymorphism,
Dopamine,
error-related negativity (ERN),
visual N1,
conflict monitoring
Conference:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Executive Processes
Citation:
Lai
JY,
Pauling
ME and
Kirk
IJ
(2013). The COMT Val158Met polymorphism: Individual differences in visual N1 and error-related negativity.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00107
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Received:
24 Sep 2013;
Published Online:
25 Nov 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Miss. Jennifer Y Lai, The University of Auckland, School of Psychology, Auckland, New Zealand, jenniferlai224@gmail.com