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      MAOA genotype, social exclusion and aggression: an experimental test of a gene-environment interaction.

      1 , ,
      Genes, brain, and behavior

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          Abstract

          In 2002, Caspi and colleagues provided the first epidemiological evidence that genotype may moderate individuals' responses to environmental determinants. However, in a correlational study great care must be taken to ensure the proper estimation of the causal relationship. Here, a randomized experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that the MAOA gene promoter polymorphism (MAOA-LPR) interacts with environmental adversity in determining aggressive behavior using laboratory analogs of real-life conditions. A sample of 57 Caucasian male students of Catalan and Spanish origin was recruited at the University of Barcelona. Ostracism, or social exclusion, was induced as environmental adversity using the Cyberball software. Laboratory aggression was assessed with the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP), which was used as an analog of antisocial behavior. We also measured aggressiveness by means of the reduced version of the Aggression Questionnaire. The MAOA-LPR polymorphism showed a significant effect on the number of aggressive responses in the PSAP (F(1,53) = 4.63, P = 0.03, partial η(2) = 0.08), as well as social exclusion (F(1,53) = 8.03, P = 0.01, partial η(2) = 0.13). Most notably, however, we found that the MAOA-LPR polymorphism interacts significantly with social exclusion in order to provoke aggressive behavior (F(1,53) = 4.42, P = 0.04, partial η(2) = 0.08), remarkably, the low-activity allele of the MAOA-LPR polymorphism carriers in the ostracized group show significantly higher aggression scores than the rest. Our results support the notion that gene-environment interactions can be successfully reproduced within a laboratory using analogs and an appropriate design. We provide guidelines to test gene-environment interactions hypotheses under controlled, experimental settings.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Genes Brain Behav.
          Genes, brain, and behavior
          1601-183X
          1601-183X
          Feb 2013
          : 12
          : 1
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, IR3C, Department of Personality, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
          Article
          10.1111/j.1601-183X.2012.00868.x
          23067570
          7c7682c6-3f5a-464a-a26d-80ee63debca3
          © 2012 The Authors. Genes, Brain and Behavior © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.
          History

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