Genetik Depresyon Riskini Azaltmanın Anahtarı? – apk haber

Birinci sınıf doktorları ve yakın zamanda dul kalmış yaşlı yetişkinler üzerinde yapılan bir araştırma, sosyal desteğin depresyon için en yüksek poligenik risk skorlarına sahip olanlar üzerinde en büyük etkiye sahip olduğunu ortaya koydu.

Stres zamanlarında birine yardım eli uzatmak her zaman akıllıca bir seçimdir. Bununla birlikte, yakın tarihli bir araştırmaya göre, depresyona genetik yatkınlığı olan kişiler için destek sunmak özellikle önemli olabilir.

Çalışma, strese maruz kalan iki farklı popülasyondan elde edilen verilerin gösterdiği gibi, sosyal desteğin depresyon belirtileri geliştirme tehlikesini azaltmadaki önemini vurgulamaktadır – sıkı bir eğitimden geçen birinci sınıf asistan doktorlar ve yakın zamanda eşini kaybetmiş yaşlı bireyler.

Ancak en büyük etki, depresyon riskini artıran en fazla genetik varyasyona sahip olanlarda görüldü.

Makale, belirli genlerdeki hangi küçük varyasyonların depresyon riskiyle bağlantılı olduğuna dair onlarca yıllık araştırmaya dayanan, poligenik risk puanı adı verilen bir genetik risk ölçüsü kullanıyor.

Araştırmada depresyon poligenik risk skorları düşük olan bireylerle karşılaştırıldığında, risk skorları daha yüksek olan doktorlar ve dullar, sosyal desteği kaybettikten sonra daha yüksek depresyon oranlarına sahipken, stresli zamanlarda sosyal destek kazandıklarında da daha düşük depresyon oranlarına sahipti.

dergisinde yayınlanan araştırma, Amerikan Psikiyatri Dergisi Michigan Üniversitesi ekibi tarafından hazırlanan bir araştırma, sosyal desteği en fazla fayda sağlayabilecek kişilere hedeflemek için daha fazlasının yapılabileceğini öne sürüyor.

Genler, stres ve sosyal bağlantı

Kıdemli yazar Srijan ile araştırmasını yapan UM’de psikoloji doktora öğrencisi MS birinci yazar Jennifer Cleary, “Verilerimiz, bireylerin bu stresli zamanlarda aldıkları sosyal destek düzeyinde ve bunun zaman içinde nasıl değiştiğinde geniş değişkenlik gösteriyor” dedi. Sen, MD, Ph.D., UM Tıp Fakültesi’nden. “Genetik risk puanlarının yanı sıra sosyal destek ve depresif belirtiler ölçümlerini içeren bu bulguların, gen-çevre etkileşimlerini ve özellikle depresyon riskinde sosyal bağlantının önemini aydınlatmasını umuyoruz.”

Eisenberg Aile Depresyon Merkezi’nin direktörü ve psikiyatri ve nörobilim profesörü olan Sen, genetik araştırmaların bile daha fazlasını ortaya çıkardığını ekliyor.[{” attribute=””>DNA variation related to depression vulnerability, learning how that variation leads to depression is crucial.

“Further understanding the different genetic profiles associated with sensitivity to loss of social support, insufficient sleep, excessive work stress, and other risk factors could help us develop personalized guidance for depression prevention,” he said. “In the meantime, these findings reaffirm how important social connections, social support and individual sensitivity to the social environment are as factors in well-being and preventing depression.”

Different populations, similar patterns

The new study used data from two long-term studies that both capture genetic, mood, environment, and other data from populations of participating individuals.

One is the Intern Health Study, which enrolls first-year medical residents (also called interns) around the United States and beyond, and which Sen directs.

The other is the Health and Retirement Study, based at the U-M Institute for Social Research and funded by the National Institute on Aging.

The data for the new paper came from 1,011 interns training at hospitals across the country, nearly half of whom were female, and from 435 recently widowed individuals, 71% of them women, who had data available from surveys conducted before and after their spouses died.

In the interns, as Sen and his team have shown in previous work, depressive symptoms increased dramatically (126%) during the stressful year of training that includes long and irregular work hours — often in environments far from friends and family.

In the widows and widowers, depressive symptoms increased 34% over their pre-widowhood scores. This correlates with past research showing loss of a spouse can be one of the biggest stressors in a person’s life, Cleary said.

A crossover effect

Then, the researchers factored together the depression symptom findings with each person’s polygenic risk score for depression, and their individual responses to questions about connections with friends, family, and other social supporters.

Most of the interns lost social support from their pre-internship days – which fits well with the common experience of leaving the place where they attended medical school and going to a new environment where they may not know anyone.

Interns who had the highest polygenic risk scores and also lost social support had the highest scores on measures of depression symptoms later in the stressful intern year.

Those with the same high level of genetic risk who gained social support, though, had much lower depressive symptoms. In fact, it was lower than even their peers with low genetic risk, no matter what happened to their social support. The researchers call this a “crossover effect.”

Unlike the interns, some widowed individuals reported an increase in social support after the loss of their spouse, potentially as friends and family reached out to offer help or just a listening ear.

But the crossover effect was visible in them, too. Widows with a high genetic risk for depression who gained social support showed a much smaller increase in depressive symptoms than their peers with similar genetic risk who lost social support after losing a spouse.

There were also some widows who lost social support or didn’t experience a change in support, and whose depressive symptoms didn’t change. Cleary notes that in future work, it will be important to look at this group’s history in light of any caregiving they may have done for a spouse with a long-term illness.

The team also hopes that other researchers will study this same interaction of genetic risk, stress, and social support in other populations.

In the meantime, Cleary and Sen say, the message for anyone going through stressful times, or watching a friend or relative go through stressful times, is to reach out and maintain or strengthen social connections.

Doing so can have benefits both for the person under stress, and the person reaching out to them, they note.

Reducing the level of ongoing stress that the person is facing, whether it’s at work, school, after a personal loss, or in family situations can be critical.

And even though the study did not examine the role of professional mental health help, individual and group therapy is an important option for those who have developed depression or other mental health concerns.

Reference: “Polygenic Risk and Social Support in Predicting Depression Under Stress” by Jennifer L. Cleary, M.S., Yu Fang, M.S.E., Laura B. Zahodne, Ph.D., Amy S.B. Bohnert, Ph.D., Margit Burmeister, Ph.D. and Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D., 11 January 2023, American Journal of Psychiatry.
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.21111100

Note: The polygenic risk score used in the study is validated for use on people of mainly European ancestry, which limits the ability to generalize the findings to people of other backgrounds. Sen notes that additional work is being done using data from the Intern Health Study and Health & Retirement Study to develop polygenic risk scores based on depression-related genetic traits in other populations including people of East Asian and African descent.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.