Interaction between infectious diseases and personality traits: ACP1*C as a potential mediator

Personality and gene expression: Do individual differences exist in the leukocyte transcriptome?

“…The pattern of associations between leukocyte CTRA gene expression and specific dimensions of human personality are largely as would be predicted by the behavioural immune response hypothesis i.e., that stable individual differences in behaviour arise in response to stable individual differences in biological vulnerability to infection (Schaller & Murray, 2008; Thornhill et al, 2010; Schaller, 2011; MacMurray et al, 2013; Napolioni et al, 2014). Under this scenario, low levels of pro-inflammatory gene expression would be construed as a relatively weak biological immune defence that selects for relatively cautious behavioural tendencies including introverted behaviour (to reduce exposure to socially transmitted infections) and conscientious behaviour (to reduce exposure to risky situations or behaviours).…”

“…According to this theoretical approach, individuals who have relatively weak biological immune responses are hypothesized to show stronger behavioural immune responses such as avoidance of strangers (i.e., Introversion), reduced exploratory behaviour (i.e., low Openness to experience), and greater harm-avoidant behaviour (i.e., Conscientiousness). Recent genetic association studies have supported this hypothesis in documenting increased levels of Introversion in people carrying immune response gene polymorphisms that confer increased vulnerability to infectious diseases (MacMurray et al, 2013; Napolioni et al, 2014). Conversely, allostatic physiology (Sterling, 2004) suggests that biological immune defences may be up-regulated in individuals who experience extended exposure to threat or stress and might thus experience an elevated risk of injury or infection, or in highly sociable individuals who face increased exposure to communicable diseases (Cole et al, 2011; Cole, 2013; Slavich & Cole, 2013).…”

“…Several causal models have been invoked to explain associations between personality and health (Friedman, 2008), including common causation by underlying individual differences in genetics or early life experience (Cohen et al, 2003; MacMurray et al, 2013; Napolioni et al, 2014); effects of personality on health behaviours (e.g., smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity: Turiano et al, 2012); differential proclivity to risky situations or environments (Cohen et al, 2003); effects of personality-related stress responses on biological function (Vedhara & Irwin, 2005; Miller et al, 2009a), and reverse causation of individual differences in behaviour by individual differences in health or inflammatory biology (Dantzer, et al, 2008; Eisenberger et al, 2010). …”

A study of the effect of the genes of inflammatory proteins on basic personality dimensions

“…В частности, обнару-жена ассоциация между полиморфизмом гена CRP и ря-дом черт личности (импульсивность, избегание моното-нии и социабельность) [15]. Оказалось также, что вариан-ты генов воспалительных факторов γ-интерферона и эри-троцитарной кислой фосфатазы связаны с такими осо-бенностями личности, как «избегание вреда» (опросник TCI 1 ), а также «интроверсия», «исследовательская актив-ность» и «открытость опыту» (опросник NEO-FFI 2 ) [16,17]. В этих работах проверялась гипотеза о том, что вари-анты генов провоспалительных факторов, связанных с подверженностью инфекциям, чаще встречаются у людей с повышенными уровнями интроверсии и избегания вре-да (аналог невротизма).…”

Personality and genes: remarks from a biological perspective

“…Examples of recently published studies employing such a methodology include demonstration of the correlation between one of alleles of the ACP1 gene and reduced level of extraversion (Napolioni et al, 2014), involvement of the CRHR1 gene polymorphism in modulation of the risk of excessive alcohol consumption in response to negative emotions (Glaser et al, 2014), and modulation of cooperativeness, self-directedness and reward dependence by different alleles of genes ADRA2B, HTR2A, and SHBG, respectively . Another work indicated that despite some predictions, no correlation between different alleles of the APOE gene and personality could be found .…”