Results showed that participants who carried a certain variant of the ADRA2b gene picked up more of the noise in the presented images, especially in those images carrying an emotional impact. These subjects' brain scans revealed higher activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in fear processing. The authors concluded that "[these] carriers perceive emotional
aspects of the world more vividly."
In
another paper, the same researchers also linked that
ADRA2b variant to higher activation in the amygdala, another fear-processing area.
A 2007 study indicated that people with this variant are more likely to suffer from intrusive memories after undergoing trauma. And, yet
more research conducted in 2013 suggested this gene variant sets us up to notice and remember negative things particularly well.
So, this
common variant (present in 30% of caucasians and 12% of African Americans), may account for some individual differences in sensitivity to emotional events. We'll be sure to remember that the next time we tear up out of nowhere at an old episode of
The West Wing...which we definitely do not do.