Cited by 81Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on BehaviorNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesCognitive Abilities and Testing

Effects of sex and COMT genotype on environmentally modulated cognitive control in mice

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Papaleo, Francesco, Erickson, Lucy, Liu, Guangping, Chen, Jingshan, Weinberger, Daniel R.·2012·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Cognitive functioning differs between males and females, likely in part related to genetic dimorphisms. An example of a common genetic variation reported to have sexually dimorphic effects on cognition and temperament in humans is the Val/Met polymorphism in catechol- O -methyltransferase ( COMT ). We tested male and female wild-type mice ( +/+ ) and their COMT knockout littermates ( +/− and −/− ) in the five-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT) to investigate the effects of sex, COMT genotype, and their interactions with environmental manipulations of cognitive functions such as attention, impulsivity, compulsivity, motivation, and rule-reversal learning. No sex- or COMT-dependent differences were present in the basic acquisition of the five-choice serial reaction time task. In contrast, specific environmental manipulations revealed a variety of sex- and COMT-dependent effects. Following an experimental change to trigger impulsive responding, the sexes showed similar increases in impulsiveness, but males eventually habituated whereas females did not. Moreover, COMT knockout mice were more impulsive compared with wild-type littermates. Manipulations involving mild stress adversely affected cognitive performance in males, and particularly COMT knockout males, but not in females. In contrast, following amphetamine treatment, subtle sex by genotype and sex by treatment interactions emerged primarily limited to compulsive behavior. After repeated testing, female mice showed improved performance, working harder and eventually outperforming males. Finally, removing the food-restriction condition enhanced sex and COMT differences, revealing that overall, females outperform males and COMT knockout males outperform their wild-type littermates. These findings illuminate complex sex- and COMT-related effects and their interactions with environmental factors to influence specific executive cognitive domains.

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  • Functional studies in adult rodent models link genetic or experimentally induced alterations in DA neuron activity, DA release, and receptor binding to transdiagnostic changes in motivation and cognitive control.

    “Functional studies in adult rodent models have linked genetic or experimentally induced alterations in DA neuron activity, DA release, and receptor binding to transdiagnostic changes in motivation and cognitive control [49, 132–135].”

    From Adolescent nicotine exposure and persistent neurocircuitry changes: unveiling lifelong psychiatric risks (2025) · cites this paper as [133]

    The Materials and Methods describe adult COMT-mutant mice, and the ‘Motivational Shift’ results report genotype-dependent changes in cognitive-task performance under ad libitum feeding. The paper also reports effects of amphetamine on task performance and describes COMT as modulating prefrontal dopamine. It does not report measurements of dopamine-neuron activity, dopamine release, or receptor binding in these experiments, so those specific links exceed what this source establishes. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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  1. Mattay VS, et al. (2003) Catechol O-methyltransferase val158-met genotype and in- dividual variation in the brain response to amphetamine. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100(10):6186-6191.
  2. Blasi G, et al. (2005) Effect of catechol-O-methyltransferase val158met genotype on attentional control. J Neurosci 25(20):5038-5045.
  3. Yu C, Gupta J, Chen JF, Yin HH (2009) Genetic deletion of A2A adenosine receptors in the striatum selectively impairs habit formation. J Neurosci 29(48):15100-15103.

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Authors
Papaleo, F., Erickson, L., Liu, G., Chen, J., & Weinberger, D. R.
Affiliations
National Institutes of Health (US)
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2012-11-19
Volume
109
Issue
49
Pages
20160-20165
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W2077555529
Cited by
81
References
50
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 3
FWCI
3.03
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • European Commission (268247)
  • Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
Keywords
sex differences in cognition, catechol-O-methyltransferase, 5-choice serial reaction time task, impulsivity, compulsive behavior, mild stress, amphetamine, dietary restriction, executive function, attention, motivation
MeSH terms
Analysis of Variance, Animals, Attention, Catechol O-Methyltransferase, Cognition, Conditioning, Operant, Female, Genotype, Habituation, Psychophysiologic, Impulsive Behavior, Male, Motivation, Reaction Time, Sex Characteristics, Mice, Knockout, Mice

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