Is depression and/or anxiety genetic?

[Hoku]

I'm not talking about your chances of having it if it runs in your family, because I can see depression and/or anxiety being contagious if you were raised in it. I'm talking about actual, they've isolated the gene, genetics.

I've often heard people say "it's a leak in the brain", as though the leak causes the depression/anxiety. If this is true, then they must have isolated the gene that causes the leak. How else could they make that claim? But I can't help but wonder if the depression or anxiety is what causes the leak, instead...

 

[bobze]

I'm not talking about your chances of having it if it runs in your family, because I can see depression and/or anxiety being contagious if you were raised in it. I'm talking about actual, they've isolated the gene, genetics.

I've often heard people say "it's a leak in the brain", as though the leak causes the depression/anxiety. If this is true, then they must have isolated the gene that causes the leak. How else could they make that claim? But I can't help but wonder if the depression or anxiety is what causes the leak, instead...

Interesting topic Hoku.

We were actually just discussing this in my clinical skills class relating to patient outcomes and cardiovascular disease.

Depression has become a "catch-all" term for many, many variations of disease. It has long since been known there is no "one mechanism" of depression-Some people it seems a serotonin problem, others dopamine, even others norepinephrine (noradrenaline for our UK readers).

Different medications, work on different neurohormonal transmitters and in each individual patient it is like a different disease. Its been shown that medication alone doesn't work and psychotherapy is a must for treating depression in the long term.

Some individuals it seems none of the culprits and things like ECT therapy (which I think sounds rather barbaric but the successful clinical outcomes speak for themselves) work best for treating.

Even in cases where pharmacological intervention does work, we don't understand why. There are lots of good hypothesis, but the supportive evidence of these is lacking.


Genes and behavior is a very tricky subject. Its not really cut and dry and there isn't really "this behavior or that behavior genes". Genes allow our behavior to mediate our environments, while at the same time our environments mediate our genes-- There is no "nature or nurture"--There is nature and nurture.

For a good layman's introduction to genes and behavior I'd recommend you pick up https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060932902/?tag=pfamazon01-20, also available as a book on tape/cd if you're into that.

 

[Evo]

Here is an article on genetic links to depression and anxiety. And it's not a "leak in the brain".

http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201065a.html