The serotonin transporter has long been implicated as a key modulator of mood, with deficits of central nervous system serotonin implicated in many psychiatric disorders (anxiety, depression, alcoholism, etc.). The serotonin transporter is responsible for the high-affinity reuptake of serotonin from the synapse, effectively terminating the potentiation of the serotonergic signal. The objectives of this work were to sequence the serotonin transporter promoter region in the vervet monkey (C. aethiops), identify polymorphisms and determine whether they were associated with any of the previously characterized behavioural dimensions of the vervet. 2.8kB of previously unknown sequence was obtained and one novel polymorphism was discovered (V-SERT-Alu). 199 vervet monkeys were screened for the V-SERT-Alu polymorphism and a significant association (p < 0.05) was found to behavioural factor three (fearfulness) which is the monkey analogue of human anxiety.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.80259 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Fainman, Joshua |
| Contributors | Palmour, Roberta M. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Human Genetics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002141409, proquestno: AAIMQ98628, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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