Original articleHuman Choline Transporter Gene Variation Is Associated with Corticolimbic Reactivity and Autonomic-Cholinergic Function
Section snippets
Participants
Thirty-two healthy men (n = 18) and women (n = 14) of European ancestry aged 33–54 years (mean ± SD: 41.13 ± 5.77 years) were included in the sample. These participants were derived from an ongoing study of cardiovascular disease risk factor covariation in a community sample recruited by mass-mail solicitation from Southwestern Pennsylvania (principally Allegheny County). No participants had a history of myocardial infarction or coronary revascularization, cerebrovascular events or disease,
Main Task Effects
For the corticolimbic reactivity paradigm, analysis of the fMRI data showed significant activation of the bilateral amygdala as well as bilateral posterior fusiform and parahippocampal gyri, prefrontal and parietal cortices in all subjects. During the inhibitory control paradigm, response inhibition (no-go) was associated with engagement of several ventral prefrontal cortex areas (BA 9), the anterior cingulate gyrus (BA 32), and the caudate.
No significant effects of gender were noted on either
Discussion
To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the potential relation of a choline transporter gene polymorphism, previously shown to be associated with individual variation in peripheral cholinergic activity (as measured by HRV components) and negative mood (Neumann et al 2005a, Neumann et al 2005b), to regional brain activity in middle-aged adults. As anticipated, our findings suggest that CHT1 GG homozygosity is related to right dorsal amygdala, right caudate nucleus, and anterior
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