s | 5 Conclusions: Aripiprazole demonstrated its efficacy in maintaining abstinence from metamphetamine use in Thai patients with metamphetamine dependence following metamphetamine psychosis. It was found to be safe and well tolerated. Keyword: methamphetamine, aripiprazole, dependence, abstinence PM294 Association between polymorphism of COMT gene and domestic violence in Han and Uygur on alco...

Cytochrome P450 1B1 (CYP1B1) and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) are important estrogen-metabolizing enzymes and, thus, genetic polymorphisms of these enzymes may affect breast cancer risk. A population-based case-control study was conducted to assess the association of breast cancer risk with CYP1B1 and COMT polymorphisms. A meta-analysis was done to summarize the findings from this and pr...

Sequence variations in genes of the monoamine neurotransmitter system and their common function in human and non-human primate species are an ongoing issue of investigation. However, the COMT gene, coding for the catechol-O-methyltransferase, has not yet attracted much scientific attention regarding its functional role in non-human primates. Considering that a polymorphism of the human COMT gen...

Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder strongly associated with dopamine dysregulation. Catechol-O-methyl-transferase (COMT) is a candidate gene for schizophrenia that encodes an enzyme involved in the metabolic inactivation of dopamine. The COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism has been associated with schizophrenia and has significant inter- and intra-ethnic variations. We examined a po...

Reward processing depends on dopaminergic neurotransmission and is modulated by factors affecting dopamine (DA) reuptake and degradation. We used fMRI and a guessing task sensitive to reward-related activation in the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum to study how individual variation in genes contributing to DA reuptake [DA transporter (DAT)] and degradation [catechol-o-methyltransferase (...

Twin studies have indicated a common genetic origin for intelligence and for variations in brain morphology. Our previous diffusion tensor imaging studies found an association between intelligence and white matter integrity of specific brain regions or tracts. However, specific genetic determinants of the white matter integrity of these brain regions and tracts are still unclear. In this study,...

INTRODUCTION Preterm birth is associated with a range of neurodevelopmental deficits, including corpus callosum (CC) abnormalities, which persist into late adolescence and early adulthood. A common single-nucleotide polymorphism in the catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT) gene (Val158Met) is associated with cognition and brain structure and may play a role in neurodevelopment. It is not known w...

Problem statement: We have previously cloned a gene of Chinese white shrimp Catechol O-Methyltransferase (designated Fc-COMT) and characterized the gene expression pattern. In this study, expression and purification as well as activity assay of the recombinant Fc-COMT was further conducted. Approach: Using pET-30a (+) as a prokaryotic expression vector, the recombinant FcCOMT was expressed in t...

Autonomic dysfunction is frequent in patients with fibromyalgia (FM). Heart rate variability analyses have demonstrated signs of ongoing sympathetic hyperactivity. Catecholamines are sympathetic neurotransmitters. Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), an enzyme, is the major catecholamine-clearing pathway. There are several single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the COMT gene associated with ...

It has been recently shown that Catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val(158)Met polymorphism strongly influences prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response (ASR) in healthy human volunteers. Given that schizophrenia patients exhibit impairment in PPI and that COMT is a putative susceptibility gene for schizophrenia, we investigated the impact of the COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism...