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Posts Tagged ‘Frontal lobe’

New developmental clues on the function of COMT rs4680

Posted in COMT, Inferior frontal gyrus, Middle temporal gyrus, Superior temporal cortex, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Image by Ethan Hein via Flickr Here’s a new addition to a rapidly growing list of findings for the valine-to-methionine substitution in the COMT gene (rs4680).  The paper, “Effects of the Val158Met catechol-O-methyltransferase polymorphism on cortical structure in children and adolescents” by Shaw and colleagues at the NIMH [doi:10.1038/mp.2008.121] finds that when genotype was used [...]

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Lowering the mutational load via the orbitofrontal cortex of a “mao”ri warrior ?

Posted in MAOA, Orbitofrontal cortex, tagged , on June 8, 2009 | 4 Comments »

Image via Wikipedia Rare mutations that knock-out the function of monoamine oxidase a gene have long been known to give rise to developmental changes that increase the propensity of males to engage in aggressive behavior.  The effects of so-called natural variants – that may slightly reduce or increase the amount of activity of the MAOA [...]

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Can you find the left frontal uncinate fasciculus? 5HTT-LPR can

Posted in 5HTT, Amygdala, Cingulate cortex, White matter, tagged , on June 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia One of the most well-studied genetic polymorphisms in the behavioral- psychiatric- cognitive-genetics area is the 5HTT-LPR, a short repeating sequence that mediates the transcriptional efficiency of the serotonin transporter.  Given the wide-ranging effects of 5HTT on the developing and mature nervous system, it is perhaps not surprising that variation in 5HTT levels [...]

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Facial expressions did not give away genetic risk for schizophrenia

Posted in Amygdala, DLPFC, Frontal cortex, tagged , , , , , on March 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image by ibiscus27 via Flickr One of the difficulties in understanding mental illness is that so many aspects of mental life can go awry – and its a challenge to understand what abnormalities are directly linked to causes and what abnormalities might be consequences or later ripples in a chain reaction of neural breakdown.  Ideally, [...]

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BOLD new inquiry on genetic basis of mental disability

Posted in Actin, ARHGAP18, CDC34, DLPFC, GTPase, RSRC1, TGF-alpha, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia One of the mental functions many of us take for granted is memory – that is – until we’re at the grocery store.  If you’re like me, you dart out of the house confident that you don’t need a list since you’re just going to “pick up a few things” – only [...]

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Sea slug genes ooze a path toward understanding human pain

Posted in Cingulate cortex, G-protein, tagged , , on December 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia One of the weird things about chronic pain is that it can sometimes be more “in your brain” than, say “in your back” or “in your elbow“.  Take for example, a phenomenon known as phantom limb pain – where individuals who lose a limb, can still complain of feeling pain in that [...]

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Michael Frank probes neurogenetic basis of “oops!”

Posted in Cingulate cortex, COMT, Dopamine, tagged , , , on September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Amidst the current economic panic, I’m feeling more shocked than usual when listening to the flip-flopping, falsehoods, fabrications, backstepping, about-facing and unabashed spin-doctoring spewing forth from the news media. If watched long enough, one may even develop empathy for Henry Paulson who carries the weight of the global economy [...]

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Genetic risk factor for schizophrenia regulates brain function in healthy people

Posted in Frontal cortex, NRG1, tagged , , on June 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Nowadays, as many folks peer into the vast tangled thicket of their own genetic code, they, as I, assuredly wonder what it all means and how best to ascertain their health risks. One core theme that emerges from repeated forays into one’s own data is that many of us carry a scads [...]

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Genetic regulation of cortical structure in the pediatric brain demonstrated by landmark twin study

Posted in Frontal cortex, Middle temporal gyrus, Supramarginal gyrus, tagged , , on April 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Like most parents, I enjoy watching my children develop and marvel at the many similarities they bear to myself and my wife. The reshuffling of physical and behavioral features is always a topic of discussion and is the definitive icebreaker during uncomfortable silences with the inlaws. In some cases, the children are [...]

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rs4570625 – this is a really cool snp – if you’re a nerd

Posted in DLPFC, Frontal cortex, TPH2, tagged , , , on March 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Flickr Every student can recall at least one stereotypical professor who – while brilliant – kept the students amused with nervous and socially inept behavior. Let’s face it, if you’re in academia, you’re surrounded by these – uh, nerds – and, judging by the fact that you are reading (not [...]

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Genetic ski patrol up and down the inverted U

Posted in Dopamine, DRD2, Frontal cortex, Striatum, tagged , on March 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

The selection and dosing of medication in psychiatry is far from scientific – even though a great deal of hard science goes into the preclinical design and clinical development. One reason, among many, has to do with the so-called ‘inverted-U-shaped’ relationship between the dose of a psychoactive compound and an individuals’ performance. Some folks show [...]

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Sweets now, sweets later: rs165688 makes my holidays hell

Posted in COMT, DLPFC, Dopamine, Frontal cortex, Orbitofrontal cortex, Parahippocampal gyrus, Posterior parietal cortex, tagged , , , on January 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Holiday time is full of all things delicious and fattening. Should I have a little chocolate now, or wait till later and have a bigger dessert ? Of course, this is not a real forced choice (in my case, the answer too often seems – alas – “I’ll have both!”), but there are many times [...]

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Dopamine genes dissociate neural mechanisms for complex decision making

Posted in COMT, DARPP32, Dopamine, DRD2, tagged , , on September 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia To go out tonight or stay home? Hillary or Barack? Curly fries or onion rings? How do I make these important choices and why will others decide differently? Although there are many reasons for not stressing-out and over-thinking one’s decisions (except for really important choices like curly fry vs. onion ring), it [...]

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Squirrel monkeys’ (gene-by-) experience writ large in prefrontal cortex

Posted in Frontal cortex, GABA, tagged , , , on September 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Behavioral geneticists are fond of noting that more than half of the risk for mental illness is heritable, and, fonder of the number of specific risk factors that have been identified. What is much less well known however is how these heritable factors interact with the environment to potentiate risk. Psychiatrists, on [...]

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Xeno-phenocopy or true mouse model ?

Posted in DISC1, Frontal cortex, tagged , , , , on May 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

The DISC1 mouse is a major step forward in a translational research path towards understanding how genes contribute to the risk of complex mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The latest mouse (see PNAS – Dominant-negative DISC1 transgenic mice display schizophrenia-associated phenotypes detected by measures translatable to humans by Hikida et al.) attempts to replace the [...]

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