Molecular psychiatry
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Molecular psychiatry · Feb 2014
Elevated maternal C-reactive protein and autism in a national birth cohort.
Autism is a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome with a largely unknown etiology. Inflammation during pregnancy may represent a common pathway by which infections and other insults increase risk for the disorder. Hence, we investigated the association between early gestational C-reactive protein (CRP), an established inflammatory biomarker, prospectively assayed in maternal sera, and childhood autism in a large national birth cohort with an extensive serum biobank. ⋯ Increasing maternal CRP levels, classified as a continuous variable, were significantly associated with autism in offspring. For maternal CRP levels in the highest quintile, compared with the lowest quintile, there was a significant, 43% elevated risk. This finding suggests that maternal inflammation may have a significant role in autism, with possible implications for identifying preventive strategies and pathogenic mechanisms in autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
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Molecular psychiatry · Feb 2014
Independence of familial transmission of mania and depression: results of the NIMH family study of affective spectrum disorders.
The goal of this study is to investigate the familial transmission of the spectrum of bipolar disorder in a nonclinical sample of probands with a broad range of manifestations of mood disorders. The sample included a total of 447 probands recruited from a clinically enriched community screening and their 2082 adult living and deceased first-degree relatives. A best estimate diagnostic procedure that was based on either direct semistructured interview or structured family history information from multiple informants regarding non-interviewed relatives was employed. ⋯ These findings confirm those of earlier studies of the familial aggregation of bipolar disorder and major depression in the first nonclinical sample, and the largest family study of bipolar disorder in the USA using contemporary nonhierarchical diagnostic criteria for mood and anxiety disorders. The results suggest that these major components of bipolar disorder may represent distinct underlying pathways rather than increasingly severe manifestations of a common underlying diathesis. Therefore, dissection of the broad bipolar phenotype in genetic studies could actually generate new findings that could index novel biologic pathways underlying bipolar disorder.