AUTHOR=Lischke Alexander , Pahnke Rike , König Jörg , Homuth Georg , Hamm Alfons O. , Wendt Julia TITLE=COMTVal158Met Genotype Affects Complex Emotion Recognition in Healthy Men and Women JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience VOLUME=12 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.01007 DOI=10.3389/fnins.2018.01007 ISSN=1662-453X ABSTRACT=

The catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) gene has repeatedly been shown to change amygdala activity and amygdala-prefrontal connectivity during face processing. Although the COMT gene appears to induce a negativity bias during the neural processing of faces, it is currently unclear whether a similar negativity bias emerges during the behavioral processing of faces. To address this issue, we investigated differences in complex emotion recognition between participants (n = 181) that had been a priori genotyped for functional polymorphisms of the COMT (Val158Met) and serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) gene. We were, thus, able to analyze differences in face processing on basis of participants’ COMT genotype while controlling for participants’ 5-HTTLPR genotype. Variations of participants’ COMT but not 5-HTTLPR genotype accounted for differences in participants’ emotion recognition performance: Met/Met carriers and Met/Val carriers were more accurate in the recognition of negative, but not neutral or positive, expressions than Val/Val carriers. We, therefore, revealed a similar negativity bias during the behavioral processing of faces that has already been demonstrated during the neural processing of faces, indicating that genotype-dependent changes in catecholamine metabolism may affect face processing on the behavioral and neural level.