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Hong Shick Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Hong Shick Lee.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Lack of association between polymorphisms of the dopamine receptor D4 and dopamine transporter genes and personality traits in a Korean population.

Human personality traits have a considerable genetic component. Cloninger et al. were the first to postulate that certain personality traits, such as novelty seeking, are related to the dopamine neurotransmitter system. In this study, we investigated the associations between dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) exon III and dopamine transporter (DAT1) polymorphisms and personality traits. The DRD4 and DAT1 gene polymorphisms were genotyped in 214 healthy Korean subjects, whose personality traits were assessed with the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). There were no significant differences between scores of TCI temperament dimensions (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence) and DRD4 gene polymorphism. The DAT1 gene polymorphisms also showed no significant association with any of the temperament subscales of the TCI. These data suggest that DRD4 and DAT1 gene polymorphism may not associated with personality traits in a Korean population.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Aberrantly flattened responsivity to emotional pictures in paranoid schizophrenia.

To investigate the nature of emotional experience in schizophrenia, we examined emotional responses to affective stimuli. Twenty-one outpatients with schizophrenia (9 paranoid, 12 nonparanoid) and 20 normal controls rated the arousal and valence that they experienced from the presentation of 60 pictures. Schizophrenia patients displayed less emotional responsivity to the positive stimuli and they displayed diverse responsivity to the negative stimuli, which depended upon arousal level. Further analysis, using schizophrenia subtype, indicated that nonparanoid patients reported increased negative responsivity and decreased positive responsivity, regardless of arousal level. However, paranoid schizophrenia patients showed enhanced self-reported experiences of emotion to the low arousing stimuli and diminished responsivity to the high arousing stimuli. This pattern was robust to the negative stimuli. These findings suggest that paranoid schizophrenia patients might suffer from aberrantly flattened responses to negative emotional stimuli, and that this may account for paranoid tendency and secondary social isolation in paranoid schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

An association study of catechol-O-methyltransferase and monoamine oxidase A polymorphisms and personality traits in Koreans.

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) are both involved in the degradation of various biogenic amines which have been hypothesized to have a relationship with personality traits. The present study investigated the possible relationships between the genotypes of COMT Val158Met and MAOA-uVNTR polymorphisms and personality traits measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). We recruited 286 normal, unrelated Korean subjects (138 males and 148 females). There were no associations between the COMT Val158Met genotypes or the TCI subscales in the male subjects. However, a significant correlation was observed between the COMT genotype and harm avoidance (HA, F=6.0, p=0.003) in females. Post hoc analyses showed that the subjects with the Met/Met genotype had the lowest mean HA (HA=13.8+/-5.7, p=0.02), Val/Met group had an intermediate mean HA score (HA=16.3+/-7.0, p=0.02), and Val/Val group had the highest mean HA value (HA=19.6+/-7.0, p=0.02). There were no associations between the MAOA-uVNTR and the TCI subscales in either the male or female subjects. These results suggest that genetic variants of the COMT Val158Met gene may play a role in HA in Korean females but not in males.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Neural mechanism for judging the appropriateness of facial affect.

Questions regarding the appropriateness of facial expressions in particular situations arise ubiquitously in everyday social interactions. To determine the appropriateness of facial affect, first of all, we should represent our own or the other's emotional state as induced by the social situation. Then, based on these representations, we should infer the possible affective response of the other person. In this study, we identified the brain mechanism mediating special types of social evaluative judgments of facial affect in which the internal reference is related to theory of mind (ToM) processing. Many previous ToM studies have used non-emotional stimuli, but, because so much valuable social information is conveyed through nonverbal emotional channels, this investigation used emotionally salient visual materials to tap ToM. Fourteen right-handed healthy subjects volunteered for our study. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activation during the judgmental task for the appropriateness of facial affects as opposed to gender matching tasks. We identified activation of a brain network, which includes both medial frontal cortex, left temporal pole, left inferior frontal gyrus, and left thalamus during the judgmental task for appropriateness of facial affect compared to the gender matching task. The results of this study suggest that the brain system involved in ToM plays a key role in judging the appropriateness of facial affect in an emotionally laden situation. In addition, our result supports that common neural substrates are involved in performing diverse kinds of ToM tasks irrespective of perceptual modalities and the emotional salience of test materials.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, factor-analyzed symptom dimensions and serotonin transporter polymorphism.

Recently, on the basis of the effects of serotonin (5-HT) reuptake inhibitors in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) treatment, several candidate genes related to 5-HT regulation have been hypothesized to play an important role in the development of OCD. One of them is 5-HT transporter gene. Therefore, the aims of this study were to investigate the associations between 5-HT transporter polymorphism and OCD. One hundred and twenty-four OCD patients and 171 normal controls participated in this study. Genomic DNA was extracted from their blood. Comparison of the genotypes and allele frequencies of the SERTPR polymorphism between the OCD group and the control group was made. Using principal component analysis, we derived four factors from thirteen main contents of the Y-BOCS checklist and investigated the association between these four factors and the SERTPR polymorphism. In this case-control study, we could not find any associations between the SERTPR polymorphism and the development of OCD. In the OCD group, patients with the L genotype had higher scores for the religious/somatic factor than with the S genotype. In conclusion, the SERTPR polymorphism does not affect the development of OCD. But SERTPR polymorphisms affect certain factors of OC symptoms. Moreover, the factor analytic approach used in the present study has identified meaningful symptom dimensions to help guide future research.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Serotonin transporter gene polymorphism and personality traits in a Korean population.

Recently, there has been growing enthusiasm for exploring biological approaches to personality, especially in the area of genetic research into the identification of those genes responsible for particular personality traits. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the serotonin transporter-linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) polymorphism and personality traits. We recruited 211 unrelated, normal subjects. The Korean version of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was used to assess certain personality traits. From blood samples taken from the subjects, DNA was isolated using standard techniques and the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism was genotyped by means of polymerase chain reaction and electrophoresis. We classified the subject into the s/s, s/l, and l/l groups according to their genotype. The differences in the temperament factors of the TCI between group S (s/s genotype) and group L (s/l + l/l genotype) were assessed, after the inclusion of gender and age as covariates in the analysis of variance. After controlling for gender and age, there were no associations between the harm avoidance, novelty seeking, and reward dependence scores and the genotypes. However, the persistence score of group S was significantly higher than that of group L. Our results suggest that the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism may be associated with the persistence score of the TCI in a normal Korean population.

Adult↗