Although the study of psychological genetics is in its infancy and much is still to be learned, in this article, we present data suggesting that variation in several genes known to
affect brain function appear to influence the degree to which one is emotionally responsive to the social environment.
«Now that we have more evidence that serotonin is a chemical that
appears affected early in cognitive decline, we suspect that increasing serotonin
function in the
brain could prevent memory loss from getting worse and slow disease progression,» says Gwenn Smith, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of geriatric psychiatry and neuropsychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.