Matti E Virkkunen

Objective: To investigate which sociodemographic factors and behaviors are associated with breakfast skipping in adolescents and adults.Design: Five birth cohorts of adolescent twins and their parents received an extensive behavioral and medical self-report questionnaire that also assessed breakfast-eating frequency.Setting: Finland, 1991–1995.Subjects: A population sample of 16-y-old girls and boys (n=5448) and their parents (n=4660).Results: Parental breakfast eating was the ...

BACKGROUND: There is an extensive literature describing a central serotonin deficit in alcoholic, impulsive, violent offenders and fire setters. In the present study, we investigated biochemical concomitants of impulsivity and aggressiveness, and the physiological consequences of reduced central serotonin turnover.

METHODS: Forty-three impulsive and 15 nonimpulsive alcoholic offenders and 21 healthy volunteers were studied in the forensic psychiatry ward of a university psychiatric ...

The chromosome 4 cluster of GABAA receptor genes is predominantly expressed in the brain reward circuitry and this chromosomal region has been implicated in linkage scans for alcoholism. Variation in one chromosome 4 gene, GABRA2, has been robustly associated with alcohol use disorders (AUD) although no functional locus has been identified. As HapMap data reveal moderate long-distance linkage disequilibrium across GABRA2 and the adjacent gene, GABRG1, it is possible that the functional ...

The neuropeptide galanin is widely expressed in the periphery and the central nervous system and mediates diverse physiological processes and behaviors including alcohol abuse, depression and anxiety. Four genes encoding galanin and its receptors have been identified (GAL, GALR1, GALR2 and GALR3). Recently we found that GAL haplotypes were associated with alcoholism, raising the possibility that genetic variation in GALR1, GALR2 and GALR3 might also alter alcoholism risk. Tag single ...

The μ opioid receptor is implicated in the reward, tolerance and withdrawal effects of alcohol and other drugs of abuse.1,2 This hypothesis is supported by the effects of alcohol on beta-endorphin release,3 of μopioid receptor agonists and antagonists on alcohol consumption,4,5 and by the activation of the dopaminergic reward system by both alcohol and opiates.6 In addition, the murine μopioid receptor locus, Oprm, is implicated as the major quantitative trait locus (QTL) affecting the ...

CONTEXT: Tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2) encodes the rate-limiting enzyme for brain serotonin biosynthesis. It was recently reported that the TPH2 haplotype was linked to depression in humans.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the association of TPH2 with suicide attempt, major depression, and a neurochemical intermediate phenotype, cerebrospinal fluid 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid.

DESIGN: We resequenced TPH2 coding, 5' promoter, 3'-untranslated region, and splice junction regions in 190 individuals ...

The GABAAalpha2 receptor gene (GABRA2) modulates anxiety and stress response. Three recent association studies implicate GABRA2 in alcoholism, however in these papers both common, opposite-configuration haplotypes in the region distal to intron3 predict risk. We have now replicated the GABRA2 association with alcoholism in 331 Plains Indian men and women and 461 Finnish Caucasian men. Using a dimensional measure of anxiety, harm avoidance (HA), we also found that the association with ...

The neuropeptide galanin (GAL) is widely expressed in the central nervous system. Animal studies have implicated GAL in alcohol abuse and anxiety: chronic ethanol intake increases hypothalamic GAL mRNA; high levels of stress increase GAL release in the central amygdala. The coding sequence of the galanin gene, GAL, is highly conserved and a functional polymorphism has not yet been found. The aim of our study was, for the first time, to identify GAL haplotypes and investigate associations ...

Patients with bulimia nervosa have been reported to respond to treatment with the serotonin uptake inhibitor fluoxetine. In a preliminary study, which had a small sample size, women with bulimia nervosa were reported to have elevated cardiac vagal tone. We investigated cardiac vagal tone in women with bulimia nervosa before and after treatment with fluoxetine. At baseline, resting cardiac vagal tone, deduced from the respiratory component of heart rate variability, was quantified in 41 ...

Variation in brain monoaminergic activity is heritable and modulates risk of alcoholism and other addictions, as well as food intake and energy expenditure. Monoamine oxidase A deaminates the monoamine neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine (DA), and noradrenalin. The monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene (Xp11.5) contains a length polymorphism in its promoter region (MAOA-LPR) that putatively affects transcriptional efficiency. Our goals were to test (1) whether MAOA-LPR contributes to ...

BACKGROUND: Heritable variation in brain monoaminergic activity has been suggested to lead to interindividual differences in vulnerability to alcoholism, and many other behavioral disorders. We evaluated if a functional Cys23Ser polymorphism in the 5-HT2C receptor gene, the principal serotonin receptor in the brain, contributes to variation in serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine activity, as indexed by their major metabolite concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). ...

BACKGROUND: This study investigated biochemical and family variables and predictors of recidivism among forensic psychiatric patients who had committed violent offenses or set fires.

METHODS: One hundred fourteen male alcoholic violent offenders and fire setters were followed up for an average of 4.5 years after release from prison. At the beginning of their incarceration, the first half of the offenders were administered clinical diagnostic interviews, whereas the latter half received ...

BACKGROUND: The goal of this study was to evaluate the role of genetic variation in the coding sequence of tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) in the pathogenesis of several psychiatric diseases in which altered serotonin function has been implicated: bipolar affective disorder (BP), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anorexia nervosa (AN), seasonal affective disorder (SAD), panic disorder (PD), and alcoholism (Alc).

METHODS: Ninety-three percent of the TPH coding sequence was screened by ...