COMT基因对注意控制神经基础的调控效应：影像遗传学研究的元分析

为探索注意控制能力个体差异的遗传来源, 当前研究主要关注儿茶酚胺氧位甲基转移酶(catechol-O-Methyltransferase, COMT)基因对参与注意控制加工的前额叶脑区的调控作用。为进一步回答COMT基因是否也对全脑范围的注意脑区具有调控作用, 本文对17篇遗传影像学研究进行元分析。结果发现, COMT基因Val/Val (vv)基因型的被试在注意控制任务下, 不仅前额叶脑区的激活水平高于Met/Met(mm)基因型的被试, 在前扣带回和后扣带回等前额叶之外的脑区激活水平也高于mm基因型的被试, 而且在这些脑区的效应值(vv>mm)都较大(Cohen’s d > 0.8)。由此, 元分析结果表明：COMT基因不仅调控前额叶脑区, 而且对形成注意控制网络的多个脑区都有调控效应。此结果提示注意控制能力的个体差异可能部分的来自于COMT基因对注意控制网络的调控作用。     

心肌保护基因治疗进展及展望

心肌保护基因治疗的研究目前仍停留在动物实验阶段。本文从哲学的角度论述了心肌保护基因治疗研究的进展与优点,以及存在的安全性、局限性与伦理学方面的问题,并就目前其它领域基因治疗的进展对其作了进一步的展望。     

Approaching Religious Guidelines for Chimera Policymaking

Recent developments in the use of cow egg cells to clone human somatic cells, and the grafting by researchers at several universities of human neurons into mice, bring the notion of the chimera, a mixture of several living organisms, from myth into reality. In his article “Cross‐Species Chimeras: Exploring a Possible Christian Perspective,” Neville Cobbe considers the religious arguments overlying the creation of human‐nonhuman chimeras. In my commentary I focus on the distinction between germline‐ and tissue transplant‐related chimeric techniques implicit in Cobbe's essay and argue that the former poses more serious moral difficulties than the latter if the chimeric product is brought to term. The substantive view of the imago Dei, or image of God, serves as a scaffold by which to judge the permissibility of chimera creation using stem cell and other tissue implants. While useful for judging the rights of such artificially generated beings, I argue that specific criteria such as proportion of tissue uptake, mental capacity, and adherence with the organism's telos are more appropriately considered within a composite image of the living being reflecting its unique integrality. Human co‐creativity with the Divine will inevitably prompt attempts to generate medically useful chimeras. Religious dialogue, combined with the categories of religious moral argument appearing in Cobbe's essay, will help to establish the outline of feasible policy guidelines addressing the complexities inherent in the creation of chimeras.     

父母教养行为与青少年早期抑郁的关系：多基因与负性生活事件的调节作用

以745名青少年为被试,采用多基因×多环境设计,考察COMT Val158Met、5-HTR1A C-1019G和BDNF Val66Met基因多态性的多基因累加得分与负性生活事件在父母教养行为与青少年早期抑郁之间的调节作用及其性别差异。结果发现,多基因累加得分与负性生活事件仅能显著调节父亲积极教养行为对青少年抑郁的预测作用,且该调节作用只存在于男青少年群体中。研究结果丰富了抑郁的多基因遗传机制研究,为制定青少年早期抑郁的干预措施提供了理论依据。     

Belief in gene technology: The influence of environmental attitudes and gender

In the past, different items for measuring acceptance of gene technology were used, making comparison of results from different opinion polls rather difficult. A scale consisting of five items for assessing belief in gene technology was developed. Analysis yielded that the items form a strong Mokken scale. Results indicated that environmental attitudes and gender predict acceptance of gene technology. Participants who value nature for its own sake had negative attitudes and participants valuing nature because of its usefulness and benefits to humans had positive attitudes toward gene technology. Participants were randomly selected students from a Swiss University (N = 891).     

Bartter综合征的研究进展

Bartter综合征（BS）是一种内分泌与肾脏功能紊乱的遗传代谢性疾病,分子遗传学表明为离子通道基因突变所致,各年龄段均可发病,主要见于儿童时期,临床罕见。因为许多临床医师对本痛缺乏认识而易延误诊治。若能及时治疗,可较好地控制病情,改善患儿生活质量,减少后遗症的发生率和病死率。近年来,BS的发病率有逐渐上升趋势。因此,本文对BS的发病机制、临床表现、诊断与治疗的研究现状做一总结,旨在提高临床医师对本病的认识,争取做到早诊断早治疗,改善患儿预后。     

MicroRNA调控膀胱癌演进的研究现状及展望

微小核糖核酸（mieroRNA,miRNA）在转录后水平对基因的表达进行调控。miRNA在膀胱癌的演进过程中发挥着类似于癌基因或抑癌基因的作用。目前研究表明,对miRNA的调控可为临床膀胱癌的诊治提供一个新的靶点,提高膀胱癌患者的远期生存率和生活质量。本文将就miRNA的形成、作用机理及其对膀胱癌发生、发展的影响等方面作一综述,介绍miRNA在膀胱癌演进过程中的研究进展。     

E.O. Wilson's Conquest of Earth

The publication of Edward O. Wilson's recent book, The Social Conquest of Earth, launches a new missile in the purported warfare between science and religion. The launching-pad is Wilson's embracing of group selection over kin selection to explain the evolutionary success of cooperation and even altruism in complex social groups. Rather than the selfish gene, groups of genetically diverse individuals who cooperate with one another drive evolution toward increased social organization, toward eusociality. Within the field of sociobiology, this is interesting. But Wilson does not stop here. He proceeds to engage in combat with all competing points of view, especially religious points of view. By relegating religion to a primitive stage of evolution and elevating science to an advanced stage, he provides justification for science to eliminate all its enemies and to establish hegemony in the worldview war. This article provides a critical analysis of Wilson's scientific method, especially his attempt to replace creation myths with his own scientized myths of origin. It concludes that Wilson need not do battle, because he could find among theologians allies in his understanding of human nature and his concern to make the world a better moral place.     

Slouching Toward Policy: Lazy Bioethics and the Perils of Science Fiction

Too much contemporary bioethical discourse is weak on science, lazily citing and adopting science fiction scenarios rather than science facts in the framing of analyses and policies. We challenge bioethicists to take more seriously the role of providing informed insight into and oversight over contemporary science and its implications and applications. Bioethicists must work harder to understand the fast-changing truths and limits of basic science, and they must incorporate only appropriate and authentic science into their discourse, just as they did in the past when addressing the quandaries of clinical medicine. The field of bioethics is not so old and entrenched that its future is assured. Bioethicists must make themselves useful to society in order to deserve and retain the public's trust. They can best do this by ensuring that decision making and public policy are grounded in facts, not fictions and fantasies.     

The Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4) Exon 3 VNTR Contributes to Adaptive Personality Differences in an Italian Small Island Population

The search for evolutionary forces shaping the diversity of human personality traits encouraged studies that have found that islanders are relatively closed and introverted, with little interest in the external world. The ‘personality gene flow’ hypothesis was proposed to explain the mechanism underlying this difference, suggesting that the frequency of alleles that influence islander personality traits might progressively increase in the gene pools on islands because of selective emigration of individuals not displaying these alleles. We genotyped 96 individuals from the Italian mainland and 117 from Giglio Island, whose residents were previously assessed regarding their personality traits. We genotyped three polymorphisms: the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) exon 3 repeat region, the serotonin‐transporter SLC6A4 5‐HTTLPR indel and the dopamine transporter SLC6A3 DAT1 3′UTR repeat region. Only the DRD4 exon 3 repeat was hypothesised to show varying allele frequencies because this polymorphism could be associated with human migration and personality traits such as extraversion, openness and novelty seeking. As predicted, no differences in allele frequencies were found for the SLC6A4 and SLC6A3 polymorphisms, whereas significant differences were observed in the frequency of the DRD4 exon 3 alleles. The DRD4.2 repeat was more common in mainlanders, as expected, whereas the DRD4.7 allele was over‐represented among islanders who never emigrated. This last result contradicts the suggested association of this allele with long‐distance migrations. We suggest that emigration might have caused gene flow out the island that resulted in somewhat unpredictable changes in the frequencies of specific alleles, thus influencing islander personality traits. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology