Depression doesn’t come from one gene, one life event, or one personality trait. That’s what makes it so hard to predict, prevent or treat effectively.
But in a new study, researchers found the power of a tool that uses a range of genetic information to predict a person’s chance of developing depression when they’re under intense stress.
While the tool is far from ready for common use on individuals, it does suggest the potential to personalize depression prevention and identification of those who might be most vulnerable to stress or most resilient.
The findings might help lead to a better understanding of the pathways that lead to depression.
The research was conducted by a team at Michigan Medicine.
The study was done in a population of more than 5,200 people in the most stressful year of training for a medical career, called the intern year of residency.
The team used a genetic risk-assessment tool called polygenic risk score.
They constructed a risk score for major depressive disorder, or MDD-PRS, from widely available consortium and biobank data on the known associations between a person’s risk of depression, and variations throughout a person’s genome.
While genetics and stress are known to play a role in depression risk and onset, the new research helps reveal the way these factors interact.
People who had higher-than-average MDD-PRS scores were slightly more likely to be among the 3% of participants who showed signs of depression before their intern year started.
But by the end of the year, these high PRS patients were much more likely to be among the 33% of participants who had developed depression.
On the other hand, the group with the lowest MDD-PRS scores were far less likely to show signs of depression throughout their intern year.
This suggests that the scoring system could be used to identify those most likely to be resilient despite intense stress.
The team confirmed that the MDD-PRS they developed could accurately predict the chance that certain people would develop depression symptoms while under stress.
These findings further the understanding of how genomics and stress interact and suggest that further work of the genomics of stress response can uncover novel mechanisms that lead to depression.
One author of the study is Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D.
The study is published in Nature Human Behaviour.
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