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Springer Nature [academic journals on nature.com], Molecular Psychiatry, 9(15), p. 918-927, 2009

DOI: 10.1038/mp.2009.36

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Neural substrates of pleiotropic action of genetic variation in COMT: A meta-analysis

Journal article published in 2009 by D. Mier, P. Kirsch ORCID, A. Meyer Lindenberg ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Genetic variation in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), encoding an enzyme critical for prefrontal dopamine flux, has been studied extensively using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods. In behavior, pleiotropic action of a functional Val(158)Met (rs4680) polymorphism on executive cognition and emotional stability has been described and proposed to be of evolutionary significance (the 'warrior/worrier' hypothesis). We conducted a meta-analysis of all available neuroimaging studies of rs4680 to investigate the evidence for a neural substrate of this behavioral pleiotropy. We show significant association between the COMT genotype and prefrontal activation, with large (d=0.73) effect size without evidence for publication bias. Strong and opposing effects were found for executive cognition paradigms (favoring Met allele carriers) and emotional paradigms (favoring Val), providing meta-analytical evidence for a neural substrate for the pleiotropic behavioral effects of COMT genetic variation and validating the use of intermediate phenotypes as a method to bridge between genes and behavior.