PLoS ONE (Jan 2015)

Regional Homogeneity of Resting-State Brain Activity Suppresses the Effect of Dopamine-Related Genes on Sensory Processing Sensitivity.

  • Chunhui Chen,
  • Daiming Xiu,
  • Chuansheng Chen,
  • Robert Moyzis,
  • Mingrui Xia,
  • Yong He,
  • Gui Xue,
  • Jin Li,
  • Qinghua He,
  • Xuemei Lei,
  • Yunxin Wang,
  • Bin Liu,
  • Wen Chen,
  • Bi Zhu,
  • Qi Dong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133143
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 8
p. e0133143

Abstract

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Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is an intrinsic personality trait whose genetic and neural bases have recently been studied. The current study used a neural mediation model to explore whether resting-state brain functions mediated the effects of dopamine-related genes on SPS. 298 healthy Chinese college students (96 males, mean age = 20.42 years, SD = 0.89) were scanned with magnetic resonance imaging during resting state, genotyped for 98 loci within the dopamine system, and administered the Highly Sensitive Person Scale. We extracted a "gene score" that summarized the genetic variations representing the 10 loci that were significantly linked to SPS, and then used path analysis to search for brain regions whose resting-state data would help explain the gene-behavior association. Mediation analysis revealed that temporal homogeneity of regional spontaneous activity (ReHo) in the precuneus actually suppressed the effect of dopamine-related genes on SPS. The path model explained 16% of the variance of SPS. This study represents the first attempt at using a multi-gene voxel-based neural mediation model to explore the complex relations among genes, brain, and personality.