Working memory is a limited capacity system that integrates and manipulates information across brief periods of time, engaging a network of prefrontal, parietal and subcortical brain regions. Genetic control of these heritable brain processes have been suggested by functional genetic variations influencing dopamine signalling, which affect prefrontal activity during complex working memory tasks...

Dopamine is critically important in the neural manifestation of motivated behavior, and alterations in the human dopaminergic system have been implicated in the etiology of motivation-related psychiatric disorders, most prominently addiction. Patients with chronic addiction exhibit reduced dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) availability in the striatum, and the DRD2 TaqIA (rs1800497) and C957T (rs6277...

BACKGROUND Cognitive deficits such as poor selective attention and executive functions decline have been reported in patients with schizophrenia. Many studies have emphasized the role of dopamine in regulating cognitive functions in the general population as well as in schizophrenia. However, the relationship between cognitive processes, schizophrenia and dopaminergic candidate genes is an orig...

Personality traits related to emotion processing are, at least in part, heritable and genetically determined. Dopamine D(2) receptor signaling is involved in modulation of emotional behavior and activity of associated brain regions such as the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. An intronic single nucleotide polymorphism within the D(2) receptor gene (DRD2) (rs1076560, guanine > thymine or G > ...

Depression is a common mental disorder; however, its molecular mechanism has not been fully elucidated. In this study, we investigated the role of maternal deprivation (MD) and chronic mild stress (CMS) in the pathogenesis of depression in rat models. The mRNA levels of prostate apoptosis response-4 (Par-4) and dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) genes in the striatum were measured by real-time PCR. Me...

CONTEXT Alcohol dependence is a common neuropsychiatric disorder with high heritability. However, genetic association studies on alcohol dependence are often troubled by nonreplication. The use of intermediate phenotypes may help make clear the mode of action of various candidate genes and improve the reproducibility of genetic association studies. OBJECTIVE To test central dopamine receptor ...

Depressed individuals who ruminate have difficulties learning from punishment and suppressing task-irrelevant information. The C957T polymorphism of the DRD2 gene, which affects functioning of D2 dopamine receptors (DRD2) that are expressed predominantly in the indirect pathway of the basal ganglia, has been found to influence suppression and punishment learning. Given these associations, we ex...

Men exhibit a worse survival rate than premenopausal women after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), however, no sex-specific management has been concerned. In a rat model involving infusion of ferrous citrate (FC) that simulates iron accumulation after hemorrhage, a higher degree of autophagy associated with higher injury severity was observed in striatum of males than in females. Since the imbala...

Sporadic colorectal cancer is considered a multifactorial disease in which multiple exposures interact with the individual genetic background resulting in risk modulation. Recent experimental data suggest a role of dopamine and dopamine receptors in the control of proliferation of the cells of colon and gastrointestinal tract. To investigate whether polymorphisms within dopamine receptors genes...

Dopamine is a major neurotransmitter in the human brain and is associated with various diseases. Schizophrenia, for example, is treated by blocking the dopamine receptors type 2. Shaner, Miller & Mintz (2004) stated that schizophrenia was the low fitness variant of a highly variable mental trait. We therefore explore whether the dopamine receptor 2 gene (DRD2) underwent any selection processes....