Chunk #69 — Results and Discussion — FAAH gene variation modulates human amygdala habituation to threat

Source

Convergent translational evidence of a role for anandamide in amygdala-mediated fear extinction, threat processing and stress-reactivity.

Embedded

yes

Text

Our rodent experiments suggest that inhibiting FAAH, via AM3506 administration, facilitates extinction by augmenting endogenous anandamide signaling in the amygdala. By extension, this raises the possibility that genetic variation in endogenous anandamide levels could affect fear-circuit function and predisposition to fear-related disorders in humans. Thus, based on our preclinical data we generated the a priori hypothesis that human fear-related endophenotypes associate with a common functional FAAH gene variant (C385A; rs324420) that produces reduced FAAH expression in lymphocytes.43