{"doi":"10.1111/jgs.17351","title":"<scp> Catechol‐ <i>O</i> </scp> ‐methyltransferase ( <scp>COMT</scp> ) polymorphism predicts rapid gait speed changes in healthy older adults","abstract":"IMPORTANCE: Adapting one's gait speed to external circumstances is critical for safe ambulation. Dopamine (DA), critical for adapting to increased task demands, predicts usual gait speed and may exert a greater role in complex tasks like rapid gait speed. OBJECTIVE: We hypothesized that a genotypic proxy indicator of greater prefrontal DA signaling would predict significantly faster rapid gait. DESIGN: Longitudinal cohort study over 8 years. SETTING: Community-dwelling adults with no baseline mobility disability. PARTICIPANTS: N = 2353 participants from the Health ABC Study. MEASUREMENTS: Repeated measures of walking speed (meters/sec) were obtained in response to: \"walk as fast as possible… (rapid gait) or \"walk at your usual pace (usual gait).\" Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism indicated DA signaling (val/val = higher metabolism, lower DA signaling; met/met = lower metabolism, higher DA signaling). RESULTS: Participants declined in rapid gait from 1.55 (SD = 0.33) to 1.35 m/s (SD = 0.34). Across the full follow-up period, the met/met genotype was associated with significantly greater rapid gait slowing. In mixed effect models, between-group differences were independent of covariates, and remained similar after adjustment for sensorimotor function, cognition, depressive symptoms, and energy. Follow-up analyses indicated the met/met genotype had a significantly faster rapid gait speed compared to the val/val genotype for the first 3 years (p < 0.01) but not years 4-8 (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Greater prefrontal DA measured with COMT polymorphism may facilitate short-term adaptation to rapid walking demands that are lost over time. Studies should examine whether these effects are long-term and the underlying mechanistic pathways.","journal":"Journal of the American Geriatrics Society","year":2021,"id":194036,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9569,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":426459,"name":"Andrea Rosso","orcid":"0000-0001-5890-9856","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672543,"name":"Xiaonan Zhu","orcid":"0000-0002-9226-8201","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":288701,"name":"Nicolaas I. Bohnen","orcid":"0000-0003-0352-6414","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":302686,"name":"Caterina Rosano","orcid":"0000-0002-0909-1506","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426458,"name":"Briana N. Sprague","orcid":"0000-0001-9035-8855","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":44,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:49:55.282992Z","pmid":"34231207","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}