Major Depression and Generalised Anxiety Disorder

1996 ◽  
Vol 168 (S30) ◽  
pp. 68-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Kendler
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Generalised Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Increase Risk ◽  
Twin Models ◽  
One Year

In both clinical and epidemiological samples, major depression (MD) and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) display substantial comorbidity. In a prior analysis of lifetime MD and GAD in female twins, the same genetic factors were shown to influence the liability to MD and to GAD. A follow-up interview in the same twin cohort examined one-year prevalence for MD and GAD (diagnosed using a one-month minimum duration of illness). Bivariate twin models were fitted using the program Mx. High levels of comorbidity were observed between MD and GAD. The best-fitting twin models, when GAD was diagnosed with or without a diagnostic hierarchy, found a genetic correlation of unity between the two disorders. The correlation in environmental risk factors was +0.70 when GAD was diagnosed non-hierarchically, but zero when hierarchical diagnoses were used. Our findings provide further support for the hypothesis that in women, MD and GAD are the result of the same genetic factors. Environmental risk factors that predispose to ‘pure’ GAD episodes may be relatively distinct from those that increase risk for MD.

Major depression and phobias: the genetic and environmental sources of comorbidity

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Kendler ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Ronald C. Kessler ◽  
Andrew C. Heath ◽  
Lindon J. Eaves
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Social Phobia ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Genetic Vulnerability ◽  
Animal Phobias ◽  
Shared Genetic

SynopsisIn a population based sample of 2163 personally interviewed female twins, substantial comorbidity was observed between DSM-III-R defined major depression (MD) and 4 subtypes of phobia: agoraphobia, social phobia, animal phobia and situational phobia. However, the level of comorbidity of MD with agoraphobia was much greater than that found with the other phobic subtypes. We conducted bivariate twin analyses to decompose the genetic and environmental sources of comorbidity between MD and the phobias. Our results suggest that a modest proportion of the genetic vulnerability to MD also influences the risk for all phobic subtypes, with the possible exception of situational phobias. Furthermore, the magnitude of comorbidity resulting from this shared genetic vulnerability is similar across the phobic subtypes. By contrast, the non-familial environmental experiences which predispose to depression substantially increase the vulnerability to agoraphobia, have a modest impact on the risk for social and situational phobias and no effect on the risk for animal phobias. The increased comorbidity between MD and agoraphobia results, nearly entirely, from individual-specific environmental risk factors for MD which also increase the risk for agoraphobia but not for other phobias.

Genetic and environmental influences on last-year major depression in adulthood: a highly heritable stable liability but strong environmental effects on 1-year prevalence

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (10) ◽  
pp. 1816-1824 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. S. Kendler ◽  
C. O. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Environmental Effects ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Diagnostic Error ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
The Impact

BackgroundThis study seeks to clarify the contribution of temporally stable and occasion-specific genetic and environmental influences on risk for major depression (MD).MethodOur sample was 2153 members of female–female twin pairs from the Virginia Twin Registry. We examined four personal interview waves conducted over an 8-year period with MD in the last year defined by DSM-IV criteria. We fitted a structural equation model to the data using classic Mx. The model included genetic and environmental risk factors for a latent, stable vulnerability to MD and for episodes in each of the four waves.ResultsThe best-fit model was simple and included genetic and unique environmental influences on the latent liability to MD and unique wave-specific environmental effects. The path from latent liability to MD in the last year was constant over time, moderate in magnitude (+0.65) and weaker than the impact of occasion-specific environmental effects (+0.76). Heritability of the latent stable liability to MD was much higher (78%) than that estimated for last-year MD (32%). Of the total unique environmental influences on MD, 13% reflected enduring consequences of earlier environmental insults, 17% diagnostic error and 70% wave-specific short-lived environmental stressors.ConclusionsBoth genetic influences on MD and MD heritability are stable over middle adulthood. However, the largest influence on last-year MD is short-lived environmental effects. As predicted by genetic theory, the heritability of MD is increased substantially by measurement at multiple time points largely through the reduction of the effects of measurement error and short-term environmental risk factors.

Bulimia nervosa and major depression: a study of common genetic and environmental factors

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen E. Walters ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Lindon J. Eaves ◽  
Andrew C. Heath ◽  
Ronald C. Kessler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Clinical Diagnoses ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

SynopsisA genetic analysis of the co-occurrence of bulimia and major depression (MD) was performed on 1033 female twin pairs obtained from a population based register. Personal interviews were conducted and clinical diagnoses made according to DSM-III-R criteria.Additive genes, but not family environment, are found to play an important aetiological role in both bulimia and MD. The genetic liabilities of the two disorders are correlated 0·456. While unique environmental factors account for around half of the variation in liability to both bulimia and MD, these risk factors appear to be unrelated, i.e., each disorder has its own set of unique environmental risk factors. Thus, the genetic liability of bulimia and MD is neither highly specific nor entirely nonspecific. There is some genetic correlation between the two disorders as well as some genetic and environmental risk factors unique to each disorder. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for three measures of disordered eating

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 925-934 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. WADE ◽  
N. G. MARTIN ◽  
M. C. NEALE ◽  
M. TIGGEMANN ◽  
S. A. TRELOAR ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Disordered Eating ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Similar Degree ◽  
Psychiatric Interview

Background. The study explored the genetic and environmental risk factors for both the behaviours and attitudes characteristic of disordered eating.Methods. In three waves of data collection, information was collected from female twins regarding their eating and attitudes towards eating, weight and shape. The first assessment consisted of a self-report questionnaire (1988–9) with 1682 women. The second assessment consisted of a semi-structured psychiatric interview schedule (1992–3), completed by 1852 women, many of whom had completed Wave 1 assessment. The third assessment, with 325 women chosen from Waves 1 and 2 (1995–6), consisted of a semi-structured interview (the Eating Disorder Examination).Results. As only one twin pair was concordant for lifetime bulimia nervosa at Wave 3 assessment, ordinal measures of all assessments were used in a multivariate genetic analysis. Results indicated that additive genetic and non-shared environmental influences best explained variance in liability to disordered eating, with about 60% (95% CI 50–68) of the variance explained by genetic factors. Comparison with a model allowing for the effects of shared environment indicated genetic factors accounted for a similar degree of variance (59%, 95% CI 36–68).Conclusion. Liability to the development of the behaviours and attitudes characteristic of eating disorders is best explained by both environmental and genetic factors, with covariation between the three measures best explained by a single latent phenotype of disordered eating which has a heritability of 60%.

scholarly journals The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for fears and phobias

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (11) ◽  
pp. 2375-2384 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. K. Loken ◽  
J. M. Hettema ◽  
S. H. Aggen ◽  
K. S. Kendler
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Dsm 5 ◽  
Co Morbidity ◽  
Blood Injection ◽  
Dsm Iv ◽  
Phobic Stimuli

BackgroundAlthough prior genetic studies of interview-assessed fears and phobias have shown that genetic factors predispose individuals to fears and phobias, they have been restricted to the DSM-III to DSM-IV aggregated subtypes of phobias rather than to individual fearful and phobic stimuli.MethodWe examined the lifetime history of fears and/or phobias in response to 21 individual phobic stimuli in 4067 personally interviewed twins from same-sex pairs from the Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Disorders (VATSPSUD). We performed multivariate statistical analyses using Mx and Mplus.ResultsThe best-fitting model for the 21 phobic stimuli included four genetic factors (agora-social-acrophobia, animal phobia, blood-injection-illness phobia and claustrophobia) and three environmental factors (agora-social-hospital phobia, animal phobia, and situational phobia).ConclusionsThis study provides the first view of the architecture of genetic and environmental risk factors for phobic disorders and their subtypes. The genetic factors of the phobias support the DSM-IV and DSM-5 constructs of animal and blood-injection-injury phobias but do not support the separation of agoraphobia from social phobia. The results also do not show a coherent genetic factor for the DSM-IV and DSM-5 situational phobia. Finally, the patterns of co-morbidity across individual fears and phobias produced by genetic and environmental influences differ appreciably.

scholarly journals Environmental risk factors for psychosis

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-80 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Drug Abuse ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Growth Retardation ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Fetal Growth Retardation ◽  
Illness Onset ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Individual

Genetic factors are clearly important in the etiology of schizophrenia, but the environment in which an individual's genes find expression is also crucial to the development of the illness. In this review of environmental risk factors for schizophrenia, we consider risks operating prenatally and perinatally, during childhood, and then later in life prior to illness onset Some of these risk factors have been well documented, for example, early hazards causing fetal growth retardation or hypoxia, and hazards nearer the onset of illness like drug abuse and migration. Others are much less certain. The importance of interaction between genetic and environmental risk is, however, undoubtedly important and there is emerging evidence for this from a range of sources. As the etiology of schizophrenia is unraveled, the picture becomes more complex, but also more obviously relevant to the plight of the individual patient.

Major Depression and Associated Impairment: Same or Different Genetic and Environmental Risk Factors?

2003 ◽  
Vol 160 (12) ◽  
pp. 2128-2133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra L. Foley ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Charles O. Gardner ◽  
Andrew Pickles ◽  
Kenneth S. Kendler
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors

scholarly journals Structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for dimensional representations of DSM–IV anxiety disorders

2009 ◽  
Vol 195 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Tambs ◽  
Nikolai Czajkowsky ◽  
Espen R⊘ysamb ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Ted Reichborn-Kjennerud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Common Factor ◽  
Genetic Effect ◽  
Composite International Diagnostic Interview ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Compulsive Disorder

BackgroundTwin data permit decomposition of comorbidity into genetically and environmentally derived correlations. No previous twin study includes all major forms of anxiety disorder.AimsTo estimate the degree to which genetic and environmental risk factors are shared rather than unique to dimensionally scored panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, phobias, obsessive–compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.MethodData obtained from 2801 young-adult Norwegian twins by means of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview were analysed with the Mx program.ResultsA multivariate common factor model fitted best. The latent liability to all anxiety disorders was substantially more heritable (54%) than the individual disorders (23% to 40%). Most of the genetic effect was common to the disorders. Genes contributed just over 50% to the covariance between liabilities.ConclusionsThe five anxiety disorders all share genetic and environmental risk factors. This has implications for the revision of the anxiety disorder section in DSM–V.

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