1. ¹Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany
2. ²Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany
3. ³Department of Genetics, Gene Mapping Center, Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany
4. ⁴Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany

Correspondence: Dr UE Lang, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Dresden, Fetscherstr 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany, Tel: +49 351 458 3683/+49 163 7568822; Fax: +49 351 458 4324; E-mail: undine.lang@gmx.de

⁵These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 29 September 2006; Revised 5 December 2006; Accepted 18 December 2006; Published online 14 February 2007.

Abstract

The gene encoding cathechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) contains a common functional missense polymorphism (Val158Met) that regulates dopamine in an allele-dependent manner. A pivotal role of dopamine neurotransmission in the prefrontal cortex has been implicated in drug-seeking behavior and related personality traits, such as sensation seeking, with some evidence for a gender-specific association. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the COMT Val158Met polymorphism modulates the personality dimension, sensation seeking, in a gender-dependent manner. Study sample included 214 male (age 38.112.6 years) and 218 female (age 36.113.6 years) healthy volunteers, who were assessed with Zuckerman's sensation-seeking scale and genotyped for the Val158Met polymorphism (dbSNP:rs4680). Univariate analysis of variance showed that the sensation seeking score was significantly affected by a COMT genotype gender interaction (F=5.330, df=2, p=0.005). The Val158Met polymorphism was associated with the sensation seeking personality trait in women only. The highest scores in the sensation-seeking scale and in three of the four subscales were observed in female subjects with the Val/Val genotype relative to women carrying the Met allele. Our results suggest that high COMT enzyme activity associated with the Val allele predisposes to high sensation seeking scores in female subjects and add to increasing evidence for a gender specific role of COMT in normal and dysfunctional behavior.