Effect of early psychological traumatic stress and corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1 gene polymorphism on visual spatial memory

Objective To explore the effects of early psychological trauma and corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1(CRHR1) gene polymorphism on working memory. Methods 1 534 healthy adult volunteers were recruited and divided into 3 groups according to whether ever being exposed to the Tangshan earthquake in their early life: infant exposure group (IEG, n=176), fetal exposure group (FEG, n=172), and control group (n=182). The fetal exposure group was further divided into three subgroups: exposure in the first trimester (1~3months, n=50), exposure in the second trimester (4~6months, n=59), and exposure in the third trimester (7~9months, n=63). Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R) and Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R) were used to measure their working memory. The DNA extracted from the peripheral blood were analyzed to determine the CRHR1 rs242924 and rs7209436 gene polymorphism real-time PCR.The CRHR1 genotype was further divided into two groups: A/T gene carrier and C gene carrier. Possible interactions between psychological impact of the earthquake in early life time and the CRHR1 genotype were explored. Results The total scores of BVMT-R in the FEG and IEG groups were significantly lower than that in the control group; The total BVMT-R scores of the CRHR1 C gene carriers in the IEG and FEG groups were significantly lower than that in the control group (22.5±8.1 vs. 28.9±5.7; t=-4.231, P 0.05). Conclusions The early psychological traumatic stress after earthquake exposure may contribute to the adulthood visual spatial memory decline, which may be explained partly by the interaction of the early psychological stress with the CRHR1 vulnerable genotype.