Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec 30;15(4):159-169.
doi: 10.11621/pir.2022.0410. eCollection 2022.

Recognition of Emotional and Neutral Visual Scenes in Carriers of the MAOA, COMT, DRD4, and 5HT2A Gene Polymorphisms

Pavel N Ermakov  1 , Elena V Vorobyeva  1 , Ekaterina G Denisova  2 , Denis V Yavna  1 , Vitali V Babenko  1 , Ekaterina M Kovsh  1 , Daria S Alekseeva  1
Affiliations

Recognition of Emotional and Neutral Visual Scenes in Carriers of the MAOA, COMT, DRD4, and 5HT2A Gene Polymorphisms

Pavel N Ermakov et al. Psychol Russ. .

Abstract

Background: It is known that some genes regulate neurochemical metabolism, and their polymorphisms affect cognitive performance, including the ability to categorize emotionally significant information.

Objective: The aim of our study was to analyze the recognition of emotional and neutral visual scenes in carriers of different polymorphic variants of the MAOA, COMT, DRD4, and 5HT2A genes.

Design: The study sample consisted of 87 university students (Caucasians, women 63%, average age 20.4±2.6 years). The genotypes of the COMT, 5HT2A, and DRD4 genes were determined by polymerase chain reaction. Agarose gel electrophoresis was used to determine the number of tandem repeats of the MAOA gene. Three hundred sixty (360) photographic images of scenes of different emotional valence (positive, negative, and neutral - 120 images for each category) were used as stimuli. These images were classified by expert assessments. The images were presented in a random sequence. The exposure time was 700 ms. The research participants were asked to determine the emotional valence of each scene.

Results: We found that only the COMT gene genotype affected the recognition of emotional and neutral visual scenes. Carriers of the COMT Val/Val genotype, which causes dopamine to stay in the synaptic space for a shorter time, are better in recognizing and demonstrate higher sensitivity to the emotional content of scenes. Carriers of the Val/Met genotype demonstrated the worst ability to differentiate the emotional valence of visual scenes.

Conclusion: This study has shown that the length of stay of monoamines in the synaptic space regulated by the COMT gene affects the recognition of emotional visual information.

Keywords: 5HT2A genes; COMT; DRD4; MAOA; Visual scene recognition.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Accuracy of recognition of neutral scenes by carriers of different genotypes of the COMT gene.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Accuracy of recognition of the emotional valence of scenes by carriers of different genotypes of the COMT gene.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Barnett, J.H., Xu, K., Heron, J., Goldman, D., & Jones, P.B. (2011). Cognitive effects of genetic variation in monoamine neurotransmitter systems: a population-based study of COMT, MAOA and 5HTTLPR. American Journal of Medical Genetics. Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 156, 158–167. 10.1002/ajmg.b.31150 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bo, K., Yin, S., Liu, Y., Hu, Z., Meyyappan, S., Kim, S. … Ding, M. (2021). Decoding Neural Representations of Affective Scenes in Retinotopic Visual Cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 31(6), 3047–3063. 10.1093/cercor/bhaa411 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bush, J.C., Pantelis, P.C., Morin Duchesne, X., Kagemann, S.A., & Kennedy, D.P. (2015). Viewing complex, dynamic scenes “through the eyes” of another person: the gaze-replay paradigm. PLoS ONE, 10(8), e0134347 10.1371/journal.pone.0134347 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cavill, R. (2017). Apolipoprotein e4 Influences on Scene Representation in Young Adults. A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Psychology, Cardiff University.
    1. Cervantes-Henriquez, M.L., Acosta-López, J.E., Ahmad, M., Sánchez-Rojas, M., Jiménez-Figueroa, G., Pineda-Alhucema, W. … Vélez, J.I. (2021). ADGRL3, FGF1 and DRD4: Linkage and Association with Working Memory and Perceptual Organization Candidate Endophenotypes in ADHD. Brain Science, 11(7), 854. 10.3390/brainsci11070854 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources