Study suggests interplay of gene, stress can predict ...( MADISON - When a loved one dies famili...)

An international team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, King's College London and the University of Otago in New Zealand found that variations in a gene that regulates chemical messengers in the brain could predict who was likely to develop depression after stressful life events. This finding could lead to new treatments and diagnostic techniques for a mental illness that affects millions of people each year.

The World Health Organization estimates that 121 million people worldwide currently suffer from depression, which causes them to experience periods of constant sadness, disinterest in activities once enjoyed, decreases in energy, difficulty thinking, feelings of worthlessness, recurrent thoughts of death, and changes in eating and sleeping patterns.

"The World Health Organization ranks depression as the world's fourth leading cause of disease burden - years that humans live with disability," says Terrie Moffitt, one of the paper's co-authors and a professor of psychology at UW-Madison. "If current trends continue, by the year 2020 depression will be the first cause of disease burden worldwide and, in the developed world, will be second only to heart disease."

To begin to understand this pervasive mental illness, researchers led by Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi investigated the interaction between genes and stressful events to determine if such an interaction could predict the future onset of depression. They zeroed in on the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT). This gene regulates levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that sends signals between nerve cells in the brain. Variations in the 5-
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Contact: Terrie Moffitt
t.moffitt@iop.kcl.ac.uk
44-207-848-0936
University of Wisconsin-Madison
17-Jul-2003