Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Diagnosing depression
- 2 Traumatic life events: general issues
- 3 Life events and depression: preliminary issues
- 4 Life events and depression: is there a causal connection?
- 5 Genetics of depression
- 6 Gene–environment correlation and interaction in depression
- 7 Monoamines and depression
- 8 Stress hormones and depression
- 9 Stress, the brain and depression
- Epilogue
- Name index
- Subject index
5 - Genetics of depression
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Diagnosing depression
- 2 Traumatic life events: general issues
- 3 Life events and depression: preliminary issues
- 4 Life events and depression: is there a causal connection?
- 5 Genetics of depression
- 6 Gene–environment correlation and interaction in depression
- 7 Monoamines and depression
- 8 Stress hormones and depression
- 9 Stress, the brain and depression
- Epilogue
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
In the previous chapters, the role of genetic and nongenetic factors (e.g. life events, personality traits and chronic difficulties) in relation to the onset of depression was discussed. This leads to the question, which was already touched upon earlier: to what degree do genetic and nongenetic factors interact, that is, to what degree do they influence each other? In the two following chapters this question will be dealt with in more detail. First, the genetics of depression will be discussed. In the next chapter, we will specifically deal with the gene–environment interactions that are thought to underlie depressive illness.
Genetics of depression
Genetic epidemiology of depression
Mental health practitioners are used to thinking in terms of ‘visible’ environmental risks in relation to onset and persistence of psychiatric disorders. Stressful life events, chronic difficulties and dysfunctional parental interactions are but a few examples. Traditional psychiatric epidemiology was concerned mainly with such environmental risks. Conversely, clinical genetics was until recently almost exclusively concerned with Mendelian syndromes, for which single-gene defects could be mapped by positional cloning. Over the past decades, however, there has been increasing awareness that, for common psychiatric disorders, ‘hidden’ genetic factors can have a substantial influence on the effect of environmental exposures or even pose as risk factors.
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- Information
- Stress, the Brain and Depression , pp. 59 - 77Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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