Association study of val66Met functional polymorphism in brain-derived neurotrophic factor with creativity and personality traits of college students

Objective To study the associations of Val66Met functional polymorphism in brain-derived neurotrophic factor(BDNF) with creativity and personality traits in a healthy college student population. Method The creativity performance and personality traits of the 830 healthy college students (272 males and 558 females) were assessed with Williams Creativity Scale (CAP) and adult Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), then study was performed on the association Val66Met in BDNF with creativity and personality traits. Results The results indicated that Val66Met was significantly associated with the curiosity of CAP (F=0.519 , P=0.036). The numbers of Val allele showed a positive correlation to the performance of curiosity.Val66Val genotype individuals had the best performance (31.924±4.010) while the Met66Met ones showed the worst performance(30.889±3.478). However, the association of Val66Met with the personality traits of EPQ was not significant in the study (P>0.05). Furthermore, there was no a significant effect of the interaction between the genetic variant and Extraversion/Introversion on the curiosity of CAP(P=0.747). Conclusion The present study suggests that Val66Met in BDNF contributes to creativity, but not to personality traits in the population. Key words: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor; Creativity; Personality trait