These findings suggest that while the DAT1 VNTR is not directly associated with dementia diagnoses, it may contribute to modulating neuropsychiatric symptoms across dementia types. The results emphasize the importance of investigating non-coding genetic variants and their interactions with established risk alleles, such as APOE*4. Larger studies are needed to validate these findings and explore the functional consequences of DAT1 variation in neurodegeneration. This work contributes to our understanding of the dopaminergic system's influence on behavioural phenotypes in dementia. It warrants the VNTR as a candidate contributing to neuropsychiatric symptom variability in aging populations.
Torbidoni-Baldassari et al. (Sat,) studied this question.