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. 2022 Sep 25:18:2159-2169.
doi: 10.2147/NDT.S379146. eCollection 2022.

COMT Val158Met Polymorphism Influences the Cerebral Blood Flow Changes Related to Psychomotor Retardation in Major Depressive Disorder

Yingying Yin  1   2 , Chunming Xie  3 , Haisan Zhang  4 , Hongxing Zhang  5 , Zhijun Zhang  3 , Yonggui Yuan  1   2
Affiliations

COMT Val158Met Polymorphism Influences the Cerebral Blood Flow Changes Related to Psychomotor Retardation in Major Depressive Disorder

Yingying Yin et al. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. .

Abstract

Background: Previous studies revealed different cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes of major depressive disorder (MDD) patients with psychomotor retardation (PMR). These different changes might result from the modulation of other factors, such as genes. This study aimed to investigate the influence of COMT Val158Met polymorphism on the CBF alterations in MDD patients with PMR.

Methods: COMT Val158Met genotypes and arterial spin labeling-magnetic resonance imaging (ASL-MRI) data of 103 Chinese Han participants (63 MDD, 40 NCs) were collected in this study. MDD patients were divided into PMR group (N = 23) and NPMR group (N = 40) according to the Salpetriere Retardation Rating Scale score. PMR, NPMR and NCs groups were further divided into two subgroups, respectively, based on the COMT Val158Met genotype. CBF throughout the whole brain was calculated based on the ASL-MRI data. A two-way factorial analysis of covariance was used to investigate the main effects of PMR, COMT Met allele, as well as the interactions between COMT genotype and PMR on the CBF in a voxel-wise manner. Partial correlation analyses were also applied to evaluate the association between the CBF of significant brain regions and the PMR severity.

Results: Main effect of PMR mainly influenced the CBF of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Main effect of COMT Met allele mainly influenced the CBF of the thalamus. The interaction between PMR and COMT Met allele primarily influenced the CBF of left precuneus and right caudate. The CBF of PFC was positively correlated with the PMR severity.

Conclusion: Our findings indicate that the COMT Met allele could modulate the CBF changes of the left precuneus and right caudate in MDD patients with PMR, providing additional layer of information regarding earlier reports for different CBF changes of MDD patients with psychomotor retardation in the literature, which were assessed irrespective of polymorphisms among patients.

Keywords: ASL; COMT Val158Met polymorphism; cerebral blood flow; major depressive disorder; psychomotor retardation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Main effect of PMR on the CBF of the whole brain. The histograms exhibit the numerical representation of the CBF of the clusters in the PFC. The CBF of bilateral PFC in PMR group was significant increased, compared with NCs and NPMR group. The scatter diagram shows the significant correlation in the PFC between the CBF and PMR severity as described using the SRRS scores.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Main effect of COMT Met allele on the CBF of the whole brain. The histograms exhibit the numerical representation of the CBF of the thalamus. The CBF of bilateral thalamus was significant increased in Met allele carriers.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Interactive effects of PMR and COMT Met allele on the CBF of the whole brain. The histograms exhibit the numerical representation of the CBF of left precuneus and right caudate. The interaction of PMR and COMT Met allele primarily influenced the CBF of left precuneus and right caudate. The Met allele lead a deceased CBF in NCs and NPMR group, but an increased CBF in PMR group.
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Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81971277, Y. Yuan; 81801349, Y. Yin) and the Program for one thousand Zhongyuan Talents (204200510020, H.X. Zhang) for data collection, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20180373, Y. Yin) for the analysis and interpretation of data, and Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Program (BE2019748, Y. Yuan) for the paper’s publication. The funding program provides capital for the researchers to do the data collection, analysis, interpretation, and the publication of the paper.