The genetic influence on the human memory: a review

Abstract

The acquisition, storage and recall of information are important process to memory formation. Age-associated memory impairment was described by the first time in 1986 by National Institute of Mental Health, and potentials risk factors have been investigated, both environmental and genetics. Once the number of studies about the genetic influence on memory impairment is increasing in the last years, the objective of this work is to review the available results about the subject. A systematic review was done, including papers that investigated the association among genetic variants and memory scores. It was included results of all papers found in the PubMed database since 2000. The literature show that genes related to lipid transport in the nervous system (APOE e APOC1), to serotonin (HTR2A e 5-HTTLRP), to dopamine (DRD1, DRD3, DRD4, COMT e DAT) and to other neurobiology related functions (BDNF e ECA) were associated to some memory injury. Once the genetic profile is determined to the population, it is very important to verify the interaction among studied genes, besides between these genes and different environmental factors on memory impairment susceptibility. These kind of data will make possible personalized intervention strategies to each situation, mitigating the effect of these variables on mental health.