Genetic and neural correlates of romantic relationship satisfaction

Abstract

Romantic relationship satisfaction (RRS) is important for mental/physical health but varies greatly across individuals. To date, we have known little about the biological (genetic and neural) correlates of RRS. We tested the hypothesis that the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), the promoter region of the gene SLC6A4 that codes for the serotonin transporter protein, is associated with individuals' RRS. Moreover, we investigated neural activity that mediates 5-HTTLPR association with RRS by scanning short-short (s/s) and long-long (l/l) homozygotes of 5-HTTLPR, using functional MRI, during a Cyberball game that resulted in social exclusion. l/l compared with s/s allele carriers reported higher RRS but lower social interaction anxiety. l/l compared with s/s carriers showed stronger activity in the right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) and stronger functional connectivity between the dorsal and rostral ACC when being excluded from the Cyberball game. Moreover, the 5-HTTLPR association with RRS was mediated by the RVPFC activity and the 5-HTTLPR association with social interaction anxiety was mediated by both the dorsal-rostral ACC connectivity and RVPFC activity. Our findings suggest that 5-HTTLPR is associated with satisfaction of one's own romantic relationships and this association is mediated by the neural activity in the brain region related to emotion regulation.

The oxytocinergic system modulates sadistic context-dependent empathy in humans

“…Mediation analysis: Similar to our previous studies 51 , a resampling method known as bootstrapping was used to establish mediation 52 . Mediation analyses were conducted to examine whether the treatment effect on context-dependent empathic responses occurs through enhanced empathic responses to sadistic painful expressions or decreased empathic responses to general painful expressions (see the online supplementary material for details).…”

Childhood Maltreatment, Automatic Negative Thoughts, and Resilience: The Protective Roles of Culture and Genes

“…Moreover, given the salient individual differences related to resilience after childhood maltreatment (Afifi & MacMillan, 2011), psychologists have advanced the gene-environment model, which states that resilience is a dynamic outcome of the interplay between the environment and biological factors such as genes (Bowes & Jaffee, 2013;Wang & Deater-Deckard, 2013). Specifically, based on the framework of inherited differential susceptibilities to environmental factors, individuals carrying specific genotypes may be especially vulnerable to adverse environments (Belsky & Pluess, 2009;Luo et al, 2015Luo et al, , 2016. Indeed, studies have examined the effects of gene-environment interactions on individual-level psychological features, such as resilience, empathy, externalizing behavior, and temperament (Caspi et al, 2002(Caspi et al, , 2010Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2012;Das et al, 2011;Luo et al, 2019;Luo, Yu, & Han, 2017;Luo, Zhu, et al, 2017;Thompson et al, 2012).…”

The MAOA Gene Influences the Neural Response to Psychosocial Stress in the Human Brain

“…A psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis was performed to identify brain regions with different levels of anterior hippocampal functional connectivity between stress and control periods (Luo et al, 2016). Our reasons for choosing the bilateral anterior hippocampus were twofold: the hippocampus has an important function during stress regulation, and the MAOA concentration in the hippocampus is associated with stress.…”