BDNF Val66Met genotype is associated with behavioral learning curves: Met-allele carriers show higher learning gain and, per the authors, less efficient early learning¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2024 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Met-allele carriers showed a higher learning gain across sessions 1 to 5 than Val homozygotes, most pronounced in the practiced condition. → Lena S. Geiger 2024 q2 i? Met carriers showed higher error rates in the first session than Val homozygotes, modulated by task difficulty. → Lena S. Geiger 2024 (2)

Evidence¶

Lena S. Geiger 2024¶

Lena S. Geiger, Torsten Wüstenberg, Zhenxiang Zang, Mirjam Melzer, Stephanie H. Witt, Marcella Rietschel, Markus M. Nöthen, Stefan Herms, Franziska Degenhardt, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg & Carolin Moessnang. (2024). Longitudinal markers of cognitive procedural learning in fronto-striatal circuits and putative effects of a BDNF plasticity-related variant. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00282-2

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Group-level curve fitting of error rates across five sessions comparing 11 Val homozygotes with 12 Met-allele carriers; no standardized effect size is reported. The quote reports "a higher learning gain throughout sessions 1 to 5 in the Met group".

"This resulted in a higher learning gain throughout sessions 1 to 5 in the Met group, reflected by a higher amplitude in the exponential and a higher slope in the linear model compared to theVal group, respectively. This effect was most pronounced in thepracticedcondition."

Lena S. Geiger 2024 (2)¶

Lena S. Geiger, Torsten Wüstenberg, Zhenxiang Zang, Mirjam Melzer, Stephanie H. Witt, Marcella Rietschel, Markus M. Nöthen, Stefan Herms, Franziska Degenhardt, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg & Carolin Moessnang. (2024). Longitudinal markers of cognitive procedural learning in fronto-striatal circuits and putative effects of a BDNF plasticity-related variant. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00282-2

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Descriptive inspection of fitted learning curves at the pre-training baseline session; error-rate differences were modulated by task difficulty (practiced > shuffled > novel) and genotype (Val > Met). No inferential statistic or effect size is printed for this contrast.

"Inspection of the learning curves suggests that differences in procedural learning occurred already during the first session, i.e., the pre-training baseline session, which was modulated by task difficulty ( practiced> shuffled > novel)a n dg e n o t y p e(Val > Met)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• In the practiced condition, 23 brain parcels showed genotype differences in exponential model fit, mostly favoring the Met group and concentrated in frontal and striatal regions — related
• Behavioral learning curves in a procedural working memory task are better fit by an exponential model than a linear model across five training sessions — related
• Subcortical but not cortical activation-trajectory parameters classify BDNF genotype above chance in an exploratory decision-tree analysis — related
• Repeated procedural training produces exponential decay of brain activation in a distributed set of regions including fronto-striatal circuits, paralleling exponential improvement in task performance — related