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  • As far as we know there is no study

    2020-07-28

    As far as we know, there is no study directly investigating the effect of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism on well-being, which is related to, but much more complex than, say, affective processing. Moreover, although a few previous studies demonstrated the involvement of serotoninergic porcn in well-being (Chen et al., 2013, De Neve, 2011), these studies asked participants to evaluate their satisfaction with lives in no more than 4 items and, more seriously, did not reveal what factors might mediate the association between gene and well-being. Psychological studies have found that well-being can be mostly accounted for by positive personality traits, particularly dispositional gratitude and forgiveness (Bono et al., 2008, Emmons and McCullough, 2003). Dispositional gratitude predicts subjective well-being ratings (Wood et al., 2008a) and gratitude training promotes well-being (Emmons and McCullough, 2003). Similarly, increases in forgiveness predict increases in well-being (Bono et al., 2008) and forgiveness intervention improves well-being (Zhang et al., 2014). Taking into account the causal links of gratitude and forgiveness to well-being (Bono et al., 2008, Emmons and McCullough, 2003; Wood et al., 2008a; Zhang et al., 2014) and the general knowledge that genetic factors affect behavioral phenotypes through psychological traits (Davis and Loxton, 2013, Saphire-Bernstein et al., 2011), we hypothesized that COMT Val158Met may affect well-being through dispositional gratitude and forgiveness.
    Experimental procedures
    Results Descriptive statistics and correlations for measures of well-being, depression, gratitude, and forgiveness are presented in Table 1. As reported previously (Bono et al., 2008, Reed and Enright, 2006; Wood et al., 2008a; Wood et al., 2008b), both dispositional gratitude and forgiveness correlated positively with well-being and negatively with depressive symptoms (Table 1).
    Discussion Our study demonstrated that the increased number of the Met alleles was associated with increased depressive symptoms and decreased well-being. These findings, together with previous studies showing the increased negativity bias of the Met alleles in affective processing (Gao et al., 2016, Kia-Keating et al., 2007, Ohara et al., 1998, Smolka et al., 2005, Williams et al., 2010), highlight the involvement of the COMT gene in the susceptibility to depression. Our findings suggest a shared genetic basis of depressive symptoms and well-being, which is consistent with the high genetic overlap between depressive symptoms and well-being (Okbay et al., 2016). Moreover, the current findings went further by demonstrating the role of the COMT gene in well-being, a complex positive experience. Although previous research has shown the involvement of serotoninergic genes in well-being (Chen et al., 2013, De Neve, 2011), an important advance made by this study is that we identified COMT Val158Met, a common functional polymorphism that has no direct link to the serotoninergic system, as an additional genetic contributor to well-being. Indeed, the COMT gene encodes COMT enzyme that degrades catecholamines such as dopamine and norepinephrine, while previous studies have already demonstrated the importance of dopamine and norepinephrine functions in well-being (Nutt et al., 2007, Rutledge et al., 2015) and depression (Arango et al., 1993, Cohn et al., 1970). Thus, our results provide new genetic evidence indicating the fundamental roles of catecholamines (dopamine and norepinephrine) in human well-being.