A paper written by Associate Professor Nobuhito Abe and Specially Appointed Professor Shinobu Kitayama has been published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

The paper “Cultural variation in the gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex is moderated by the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4)”, written by Associate Professor Nobuhito Abe and Specially Appointed Professor Shinobu Kitayama, has been published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

The study reported in the paper examined the influence that different tandem repeat variation polymorphisms in the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) have on cultural differences in prefrontal gray matter volume.

Consistent with the findings of previous studies, they found that gray matter volume in the medial prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex was greater in European American participants than in Asian-born East Asian participants. Moreover, this cultural difference was found to be more pronounced among carriers of the 7- or 2-repeat alleles of the DRD4 gene, which is considered sensitive to environmental influences.

Yu Q, Abe N, King A, Yoon C, Liberzon I, Kitayama S (2019).

Cultural variation in the gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex is moderated by the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4).

Cerebral Cortex 29(9): 3922-3931.

You can read the paper here:

https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/29/9/3922/5144872

2020/01/16