The hardworking ones are precisely four times faster than the lazy ones. The hardworking enzymes are built with valine, the lazy enzymes with methionine.
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In people of European descent, 50% have a combination of both slow and fast enzymes; 25% have only fast enzymes; and 25% have only slow enzymes.
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For people whose enzymes work fast, their brains can handle the stress, because the enzymes can get rid of the extra dopamine.
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People whose enzymes work slowly can’t handle the stress, because their enzymes can’t clear the dopamine. Their brains become overexcited, and they become overwhelmed.
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The fast enzymes work so rapidly that when someone is not being stressed — when conditions are normal, and there’s just a normal dopamine turnover — the enzymes clear out too much dopamine.
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They actually need the stress (and the dopamine) to get up to the optimal level of mental functioning.
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On most days, having slow COMT enzymes is actually a good thing. But under stress and pressure, with that extra flood of dopamine, they crack.
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The COMT gene for the fast-acting enzymes is one we share with chimps and apes — it’s been in human DNA forever. But the COMT gene for the slow-acting enzymes is ours alone; it’s a more recent entrant in the survival-of-the-fittest contest.
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While you might think the Warriors are the aggressive ones, that’s not accurate. With higher levels of dopamine, the Worriers are always near the threshold for an aggressive response. It’s easy to set them off; they’re very temperamental. They get angry more easily and act out. But their aggression isn’t necessarily successful. The meaning of “successful aggression” is correctly reading and interpreting other people’s aggressive intentions, and matching them. Worriers tend to see aggression when it’s not there, and they miss it when it is. The Warriors are ready for the real thing.
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For those with the “Warrior” gene, a majority had recovered from their PTSD. And after the researchers had reconstructed their history of trauma, the scholars learned that the Warriors had only developed PTSD after experiencing a number of traumatic incidents. For those with the “Worrier” gene, it was a different story. It had taken only a single traumatic event to cause severe PTSD symptoms. And the majority of the Worriers still had PTSD related to the trauma of the genocide. More than a decade later, they had not yet recovered.
I’m wondering if there is a race/ethnicity link.
I’d guess Japanese people are heavy on the worrier gene; Polynesians on the warrior link.