Preliminary Evidence for a Positive Relation Between the COMT rs4680 Met/Met Genotype and Math Achievement

ABSTRACT

To identify if COMT polymorphisms interact with executive functions as predictors of math skills, we assessed 38 adolescents (mean age = 16.4 ± 0.80 years, IQ > 80) from a larger study of high-school students screened for their mathematical abilities. Adolescents were genotyped for the COMT Val158Met polymorphism (grouped as Met/Met or Val-carriers) and completed the WRAT math achievement test, working-memory, inhibitory-control, and shifting tasks. Met/Met-carriers achieved higher WRAT scores than the Val-carriers (W = 229, p = .009). Genotype group was a moderate-to-strong predictor of WRAT scores (β = 0.56 to 0.74). No genotype/executive-function interaction was detected. Our findings suggest that the rs4680 Met/Met genotype is positively associated with math achievement.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Enrique Arana for his assistance in blood sample collection, Diana Ávalos and Daniel Romero for their help in data collection and evaluation, and Hillary Contreras for her assistance with the database. We also thank all the participants and their families, and the high schools, principals, and teachers who assisted in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2024.2326879.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Mexico’s Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT): Investigación en Fronteras de la Ciencia, Grant No. 783 awarded to the corresponding author.