Are you good at reading faces? You can test yourself (here, here, here) or just get off the interwebz and go talk to a real person.
The MET and the AKT genes encode proteins that are involved in early brain development and in the production of new synapses. Since reading faces requires a lifetime of trial-and-error learning (ie. making new synaptic connections), these genes would likely support the development of facial recognition skills.
From the original article: “When the individuals who were [MET/AKT rs2237717/rs1130233] C carrier and G carrier simultaneously were used as the reference group, their facial emotion perception was better than that of those with TT/AA (p=0.015).”
I’m a MET/AKT rs2237717/rs1130233 CC/GG and, as my genome predicts, a pretty good face reader … but am not sure if this is a good thing. Why are you looking at me like that?
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