Abstract
The polymorphic variation in the val158met position of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene is associated with differences in executive performance, processing speed, and attention. The purpose of this study is: (1) replicate previous COMT val158met findings on cognitive performance; (2) determine whether COMT val158met effects extend to a real-world task, aircraft navigation performance in a flight simulator; and (3) determine if aviation expertise moderates any effect of COMT val158met status on flight simulator performance. One hundred seventy two pilots aged 41–69 years, who varied in level of aviation training and experience, completed flight simulator, cognitive, and genetic assessments. Results indicate that although no COMT effect was found for an overall measure of flight performance, a positive effect of the met allele was detected for two aspects of cognitive ability: executive functioning and working memory performance. Pilots with the met/met genotype benefited more from increased levels of expertise than other participants on a traffic avoidance measure, which is a component of flight simulator performance. These preliminary results indicate that COMT val158met polymorphic variation can affect a real-world task.
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Notes
A similar pattern of results was found when the GLM was conducted with unranked dependent variables and when stepwise regression was conducted with ranked variables.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the study’s paid research assistants, including Katy Castile, Daniel Heraldez, and Gordon Reade of Stanford University, for recruiting and testing participants, and Beatriz Hernandez for statistical assistance. We also thank the aviator study participants for their donation of time and for being inspirational role models of intellectual exploration. This research is supported in part by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Research and Development, the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center, the Department of Veterans Affairs War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center, and by Grant Number R37 AG 12713 from the National Institute on Aging. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Aging or the National Institutes of Health.
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Kennedy, Q., Taylor, J.L., Noda, A. et al. The Roles of COMT val158met Status and Aviation Expertise in Flight Simulator Performance and Cognitive Ability. Behav Genet 41, 700–708 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-010-9436-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-010-9436-z