Do you have the drama queen gene? How your brain reacts to emotional information is influenced by parents

Published: 23:00, 7 May 2015.

Source: Mark Prigg for mailonline.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3072807/Do-drama-queen-gene-brain-reacts-emotional-information-influenced-parents-researchers-say.html

Science field: Medical study investigation

Summary:

Gene causes people to perceive positive and negative images more vividly. Variation also heightened activity in certain brain regions. Researchers believe many artists and other creative people may have variation.

Glossary:

-          Heighten: to make or become more extreme or intense.

-          Vividly: detailed, distinct.

-          Startling: disturbing, frightening.

Review:

Do you always cry at romantic films or have a tendency to become a drama queen? Your parents may be to blame, researchers have found.

A new study has found our genes could control how emotional we become.

The study found that carriers of a certain genetic variation perceived positive and negative images more vividly, and had heightened activity in certain brain regions. People really do see the world differently. For people with this gene variation, the emotionally relevant things in the world stand out much more.

The gene in question is ADRA2b, which influences the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Previous research found that carriers of a deletion variant of this gene showed greater attention to negative words. The latest research consisted in to use brain imaging to find out how the gene affects and how vividly people perceive the world around them. The results were startling. People with the deletion variant would probably show this emotionally enhanced vividness, and they did more than scientists would even have predicted. Carriers of the gene variation showed significantly more activity in a region of the brain responsible for regulating emotions and evaluating both pleasure and threat. This may help explain why some people are more susceptible to PTSD and intrusive memories following trauma.

Emotions are not only about how to feel the world, but how our brains influence our perception of it. As our genes influence how we literally see the positive and negative aspects of our world more clearly, we may come to believe the world has more rewards or threats. There are also benefits to carrying the gene variant. People who have the deletion variant are drawing on an additional network in their brains important for calculating the emotional relevance of things in the world. In any situation where noticing what's relevant in the environment is important, this gene variation would be a positive.

Although roughly 50 per cent of the Caucasian population studied by these researchers in Canada carry the genetic variation, it has been found to be prevalent in other ethnicities. For example, one study found that just 10 per cent of Rwandans carried the ADRA2b gene variant. Further research is planned to explore emotionally enhanced vividness, or EEV in other ethnic groups, and how ADRA2b influences emotional associations related to anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction.

Written by Rebeca Mees