HTR2A gene has been the subject of numerous studies in psychiatric genetics because LSD, which resembles serotonin causes psychosis and atypical antipsychotic drugs target the HTR2A receptor.
These regulatory changes indicate that the 2AR-mGluR2 complex may be involved in the altered cortical processes of schizophrenia, and this complex is therefore a promising new target for the treatment of psychosis.
In this study, we examined whether brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor TrkB signaling plays a role in the risk for psychosis after exposure of cannabinoid (CB) receptor agonist during adolescence.
These findings provide evidence of the important role of early cannabis use and the Val66MetBDNF polymorphism on age at psychosis onset and they point out to sex-specific differences in cannabis use patterns.
No significant differences in the distribution of allele and genotype frequencies of the 5-HTTLPR (p>0.01) and 5-HT2AT102C (p>0.05) were found between patients and controls as well as between the patients' subgroups without and with psychosis.
Finally, we observe that frontal-cortex DNA methylation in the BDNF gene is correlated with genotype at a nearby nonsynonymous SNP that has been previously associated with major psychosis.
While the hypo-activity of serotonin signaling is involved in the pathogenesis of depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder; LSD, an agonist of serotonin type 2 receptor (5-HTR2A) induces psychosis.
To begin to address this issue, we conducted high-coverage targeted exome capture in a subset of neurotrophin genes in 48 comprehensively characterized cases with schizophrenia-related psychosis.
The strong and robust positive association that was noted between the C allele of HTR2A and psychosis suggests that the HTR2AT102C polymorphism is a significant risk factor for psychosis of AD.
Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is important for brain development and plasticity, and here we tested if the functional BDNFval66met variant modulates the association between high levels of childhood abuse, cognitive function, and brain abnormalities in psychoses.
Based on the literature, we hypothesized that the 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptor polymorphisms would be associated with agitation/aggression and psychosis and the 5-HTTPR or 5-HTTVNTR polymorphisms, with agitation/aggression or depression and anxiety.
There was no difference in the proportion of Met allele carriers between FEP patients and controls, and no significant influence of BDNF genotype on cognitive test scores in either of the psychosis groups.
This study aimed to investigate the degree of DNA methylation at the promoter region of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, as one of the candidate genes associated with major psychoses, in peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from 94 patients with BD (BD I=49, BD II=45) and 52 healthy controls.
The present study aimed to explore possible effects of BDNFVal66Met polymorphism variations on progressive structural brain changes after 3 years from the first episode of psychosis.
In this first phase of the project, the objective was to investigate the distribution of four candidate genetic polymorphisms for functional psychosis (Ser9Gly DRD3, 5HTTLPR, the VNTR 3'-UTR SLC6A3 and Val66MetBDNF) in a case-control sample.