2010; Krug et al. 2010), increased brain activation signals during cognitive processing (Bigos et al. 2010; Krug et al. 2010), and decreased regional connectivity (Wang et al. 2011). While the present study did not replicate associations between the CACNA1C polymorphism and mood disorder, this is likely due to the need for very large samples to detect weak associations between Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical candidate polymorphisms and neuropsychiatric diagnoses (Ferreira et al. 2008;

Sullivan et al. 2012). However, the present work does reinforce previous observations regarding stronger effects for the CACNA1C risk allele on cognitive and neuroimaging endophenotypes (Bigos et al. 2010) and clarifies the nature of these downstream phenotypic effects. CACNA1C minor allele carriers had

increased global brain volume, with larger effects for specific fronto-limbic regions – especially the caudate. In contrast with previous BLZ945 concentration literature (Kempton et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2011), total cortical white matter Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical increases were a prominent driver of increased brain volume. Total cortical grey matter increases were present, but more modest and not statistically significant. The CACNA1C risk allele also appears Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to increase global cognitive ability. This is opposite of most findings suggesting reductions in specific aspects of cognitive and emotional processing (Bigos et al. 2010; Krug Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical et al. 2010; Soeiro-de-Souza et

al. 2012), but congruent with a recent study suggesting that CACNA1C minor allele carriers with bipolar disorder may have improved working memory (Zhang et al. 2012). Taken together, these data imply that CACNA1C risk allele effects may be valuable for some aspects of cognition, but harmful for others; an interpretation that fits with an evolutionary view of mood disorder (Akiskal and Akiskal 2005) and disease-associated genes as having both adaptive and nonadaptive value depending on context (Crespi et al. 2007; Tennessen and Akey 2011). Co-incident measurement of mood, global, and specific cognitive processes; brain structure and function; Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and downstream molecular mechanisms will be needed to more accurately characterize effects of this before polymorphism. The observation of stronger effects of the CACNA1C polymorphism on caudate volumes than on global brain volumes is intriguing. CACNA1C minor alleles have been associated with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and nonmotor caudate subregions have been found to be important for integrating cognitive and emotional processing. Thus, the CACNA1C polymorphism may preferentially predispose individuals toward mood disorder or schizoaffective phenotypes. An important next step will be to explore specificity in the patterns of emotion or cognitive dysfunction (developmental course, severity, episodes, etc.) in individuals with this genotype.