Depression and anxiety
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Depression and anxiety · Mar 2013
Comparative StudyAdcyap1r1 genotype, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression among women exposed to childhood maltreatment.
A growing literature indicates that genetic variation, in combination with adverse early life experiences, shapes risk for later mental illness. Recent work also suggests that molecular variation at the ADCYAP1R1 locus is associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women. We sought to test whether childhood maltreatment (CM) interacts with ADCYAP1R1 genotype to predict PTSD in women. ⋯ Genetic variation at the ADCYAP1R1 locus interacts with CM to shape risk of later PTSD, but not depression, among women. The molecular mechanisms contributing to this interaction require further investigation.
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Depression and anxiety · Mar 2013
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex reactivity is altered in generalized anxiety disorder during fear generalization.
Fear generalization is thought to contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety symptoms and accordingly has been the focus of recent research. Previously, we reported that in healthy individuals (N = 25) neural reactivity in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), supplementary motor area (SMA), and caudate follow a generalization gradient with a peak response to a conditioned stimulus (CS) that declines with greater perceptual dissimilarity of generalization stimuli (GS) to the CS. In contrast, reactivity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a region linked to fear inhibition, showed an opposite response pattern. The aim of the current study was to examine whether neural responses to fear generalization differ in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). A second aim was to examine connectivity of primary regions engaged by the generalization task in the GAD group versus healthy group, using psychophysiological interaction analysis. ⋯ These findings suggest that deficits in fear regulation, rather than in the excitatory response itself, are more critical to the pathophysiology of GAD in the context of fear generalization.