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A functional genetic variation of the 5-HT2a receptor affects human memory

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Abstract

Human memory capacity is highly variable across individuals and is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. A roughly 50% heritability estimate1 indicates that naturally occurring genetic variations have an important impact on this cognitive ability. Therefore, we investigated a functional variation of a memory-related serotonin receptor in 349 healthy young volunteers, and found 21% poorer memory performance in subjects with the rare variant.

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Figure 1: Effect of the 5-HT2a H452Y genotype on verbal memory in young healthy human subjects.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (3232-058420.99 to D.Q., and 32-068859, PP00B-68859/1 to A.P.), by the Hartmann-Müller-Stiftung (D.Q.) and by the National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR) “Neuronal Plasticity and Repair”.

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Correspondence to Dominique J-F de Quervain or Andreas Papassotiropoulos.

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de Quervain, DF., Henke, K., Aerni, A. et al. A functional genetic variation of the 5-HT2a receptor affects human memory. Nat Neurosci 6, 1141–1142 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1146

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1146

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