Abstract
The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism affects the breakdown of synaptic dopamine. Consequently, this polymorphism has been associated with a variety of neurophysiological and behavioral outcomes. Some of the effects have been found to be sex-specific and it appears estrogen may act to down-regulate the activity of the COMT enzyme. The dopaminergic system has been implicated in face recognition, a form of cognition for which a female advantage has typically been reported. This study aimed to investigate potential joint effects of sex and COMT genotype on face recognition. A sample of 142 university students was genotyped and assessed using the Faces I subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale – Third Edition (WMS-III). A significant two-way interaction between sex and COMT genotype on face recognition performance was found. Of the male participants, COMT val homozygotes and heterozygotes had significantly lower scores than met homozygotes. Scores did not differ between genotypes for female participants. While male val homozygotes had significantly lower scores than female val homozygotes, no sex differences were observed in the heterozygotes and met homozygotes. This study contributes to the accumulating literature documenting sex-specific effects of the COMT polymorphism by demonstrating a COMT-sex interaction for face recognition, and is consistent with a role for dopamine in face recognition.
Highlights
Faces are a ubiquitous feature of our social environment
The dopaminergic system has been implicated in face recognition (e.g., Rypma et al, 2015) and dopamine availability in the mammalian central nervous system is affected by the catechol-Omethyltransferase (COMT) enzyme (Egan et al, 2001)
Our hypothesis that there would be a main effect of sex on face recognition performance was not supported, and a sex difference in face recognition ability was only found for COMT val homozygotes, with females attaining higher scores
Summary
Faces are a ubiquitous feature of our social environment. Generally, research has documented a female advantage for remembering previously encountered faces (Herlitz and Lovén, 2013). The dopaminergic system has been implicated in face recognition (e.g., Rypma et al, 2015) and dopamine availability in the mammalian central nervous system is affected by the catechol-Omethyltransferase (COMT) enzyme (Egan et al, 2001). Activity of the COMT enzyme is affected by variation in the gene coding for the COMT, which includes the COMT val158met polymorphism (Chen et al, 2004). COMT activity is regulated by oestrogen (e.g., Jiang et al, 2003), and certain effects of the COMT polymorphism on cognition appear to be sex-specific (e.g., Barnett et al, 2007; Soeiro-De-Souza et al, 2013; Gurvich and Rossell, 2015). This study investigated the potential sex-specific effects of the COMT val158met polymorphism on memory for faces in young adults
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