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Illness-specific association of val66met BDNF polymorphism with performance on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in bipolar mood disorder

Molecular Psychiatry volume 11, pages 122–124 (2006)Cite this article

Recently a study in Molecular Psychiatry reported an association between neuroanatomical endophenotype and val66met brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) polymorphism. The val/val homozygotes had larger hippocampal volumes than the val/met heterozygotes and such relationship was stronger in schizophrenic patients than in control subjects.1 We previously observed an association between this polymorphism and cognitive endophenotype (performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test – WCST) in bipolar patients, where the val/val homozygotes scored better on this test than the val/met heterozygotes.2 We extended this research to a greater number of bipolar patients as well as to schizophrenic and control subjects and found that this association is specific to bipolar illness and does not occur either in schizophrenic patients or in controls.

The analysis was performed on 111 patients with bipolar mood disorder (37 male, 74 female), aged 18–72 (mean 43) years, with the mean onset of illness 31±12 years, and on 129 schizophrenic patients (66 male, 63 female), aged 18–65 (mean 27) years, with the mean onset of illness 23±6 years. All patients were hospitalized at inpatient clinic, Department of Adult Psychiatry, Poznan University of Medical Sciences. In all, 92 healthy control subjects were also studied (34 male, 58 female) aged 19–58 (mean 31) years, with no history of mental illness or substance abuse. The mean duration of education was 13±2 years, 12±2 years and 15±3 years, in bipolar, schizophrenic and control subjects, respectively. The whole group of subjects came from only one region of Poland and was ethnically homogenous.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Adult Psychiatry, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland

    J K Rybakowski & J Hauser

  2. Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Nicolaus Copernicus University Torun, Collegium Medicum Bydgoszcz, Poland

    A Borkowska

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Laboratory of Psychiatric Genetics, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland

    M Skibinska & J Hauser

Authors
  1. J K Rybakowski
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  2. A Borkowska
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  3. M Skibinska
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  4. J Hauser
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Correspondence to J K Rybakowski.

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Rybakowski, J., Borkowska, A., Skibinska, M. et al. Illness-specific association of val66met BDNF polymorphism with performance on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in bipolar mood disorder. Mol Psychiatry 11, 122–124 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001765

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