Effect of aging and genetic variations on decision making, fine motor and cognitive skills

Abstract

Aging is associated with a decline in cognition and motor function. Several SNPs have been linked to neural and cognitive variation in healthy adults. Moreover, it is suggested that the effects of genetic variants are enhanced with human aging. The present study investigates whether aging and genetic variants, in this case the BDNF and COMT Val/Met polymorphisms, influence executive functioning, fine hand motor control and cognitive skills. Fifty-seven healthy volunteers were genotyped for the COMT and BDNF genes and all subjects completed tests assessing executive functioning, fine hand motor control and cognition. The findings of this study indicate that cognitive and motor processes decline with human aging. Although a great variability exist among elderly, the BDNF or COMT genotypes did not significantly influenced performance on the selected tasks. Further studies are still necessary to better delineate to what extent genetics contribute to the cognitive and motor functions.