BACKGROUND Cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury (CSA-AKI) depicts a major complication after cardiac surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). OBJECTIVE CSA-AKI has clearly been linked to increased perioperative morbidity and mortality. Dysregulations of vasomotor tone are assumed to be causal for CSA-AKI. While catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is involved in metabolizing catec...

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is an enzyme that plays a key role in the modulation of catechol-dependent functions such as cognition, cardiovascular function, and pain processing. Three common haplotypes of the human COMT gene, divergent in two synonymous and one nonsynonymous (val(158)met) position, designated as low (LPS), average (APS), and high pain sensitive (HPS), are associated wit...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the main causes of neurological disability in the elderly. Levodopa is the gold standard for treating this disease, but chronic levodopa therapy is complicated by motor fluctuation and dyskinesia. The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors represent a new class of antiparkinsonian drugs. When coadministered with levodopa/decarboxylase inhibitor, 2 COMT...

Human catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT, EC 2.1.1.6) catalyzes the transfer of the methyl group to a variety of endogenous and exogenous catechol substrates using S-adenosyl-L-methionine as the methyl donor. This enzymatic O-methylation plays an important role in the inactivation of biologically-active and toxic catechols. A number of studies in recent years have sought to characterize the pol...

This study examined the role of cannabinoid CB1 receptors (CB1r) in aggressive behavior. Social encounters took place in grouped and isolated mice lacking CB1r (CB1KO) and in wild-type (WT) littermates. Cognitive impulsivity was evaluated in the delayed reinforcement task (DRT). Gene expression analyses of monoaminooxidase-A (MAO-A), catechol-o-methyl-transferase (COMT), 5-hydroxytriptamine tra...

There is much evidence that schizophrenia patients have an increased risk for aggression and violent behavior, including homicide. The neurobiological basis and correlates of this risk have not been much studied. While genome-wide association studies are lacking, a number of candidate genes have been investigated. By far, the most intensively studied is the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) g...

Mercury (Hg) is neurotoxic and children may be particularly susceptible to this effect. A current major challenge is identification of children who may be uniquely susceptible to Hg toxicity because of genetic disposition. This study examined the hypothesis that genetic variants of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) that are reported to alter neurobehavioral functions that are also affected by...

INTRODUCTION In this article, the COMT gene val(158)met polymorphism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related differences in diffusion-tensor-imaging-measured white matter (WM) structure in children with ADHD and controls were investigated. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 71 children diagnosed with ADHD and 24 controls aged 8-15 years were recruited. Using diffusion tensor ...

Chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a common microdeletion syndrome associated with a markedly elevated risk of schizophrenia in adulthood. Cognitive impairments such as a low IQ and deficits in attention and executive function are common in childhood. The catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene maps within the deleted region and is involved in the degradation of dopamine, a neur...