A new meta-analysis, representing the most extensive study to date, examined the hypothesis that a particular genetic predisposition, related to serotonin, is linked to later onset of depressive symptoms when paired with stressful life events. Dr. Culverhouse and a large team of international researchers conducted this study to clarify the debate and controversy around genes (the S allele of the 5-HTTLPR serotonin transporter promoter region), stress, and depression.
Their findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, demonstrated no evidence to support the gene-environment interaction effect, a widely-held belief in the field.
Ā āA hallmark of science is the ability of results to be replicated, a criterion that has been increasingly recognized in biological and psychological research. The original 2003 report of an interaction between 5-HTTLPR genotype and stress exposure on depression has remained controversial owing to inconsistent results from replication efforts,ā they write.
In 2003, a high-profile report suggested that the development of depression was attributable to an interaction between a personās genes and their environment. Researchers proposed that certain genetic variations related to serotonin, a neurotransmitter, predispose individuals to develop depression. Specifically, the presence of a short, or S, allele of 5-HTTLPR is thought to increase oneās likelihood of depression when that person has also experienced stressful life events, such as childhood maltreatment.
This research was highly influential on the field, Culverhouse and team explain. The study was widely cited and, since its release, over one hundred articles have explored the āgene-environment interaction effectā thought to contribute to the development of āmajor depressive disorder,ā depressive symptoms, and suicidality.
Numerous meta-analyses have sought to combine the findings of these studies to determine whether this link between genes does make one more likely to develop depression after exposure to stress. However, the results of these meta-analyses are mixed. Some have found support for this interaction while others demonstrate no evidence to support the hypothesis.
Researchers have pointed out the methodological limitations of the meta-analyses in support of the gene-environment interaction effect. For example, some have pointed out that previous reviews were restrictive in their inclusion criteria resulting in misrepresented support. Others have called attention to specific statistical considerations such as the inclusion of studies that observed outcomes other than depression as well as other inconsistencies that likely resulted in erroneous support.
In this study, Culverhouse and a team of researchers conducted a meta-analysis that addressed these shortcomings. They combined the results of studies that have explored the connection between the genetic variation and life stress on the development of depressive symptoms.
In this process, a variety of studies were included to increase the power of their findings. However, they sought to reduce the risk of inconsistencies by avoiding heterogeneity in their inclusion criteria and their analytical approach. Instead, they sought to include only studies that were relevant and focused. Culverhouse and team write:
āOur goal was to include data from as many pertinent studies as possible. However, analyses based on a small number of samples can be statistically unstable, a problem that is exacerbated in models involving multiple covariates and an interaction term. For these reasons, we required participating studies to have genotyped at least 300 individuals for 5-HTTLPR and to have assessed depression and stress for inclusion.ā
By engaging in intentional methods and correcting for the limitations of previous analyses, the researchers assert that they employed proper rigor to investigate the interaction effect: āWith this approach and the large number of contributing samples, we are well positioned to clarify the relationship between 5-HTTLPR, stress, and depression.ā
Across all of the subgroups included, their results found there to be no evidence in support of the gene-environment effect for depression. In their analyses, life stress was represented both through the presence of childhood maltreatment and other life experiences as stressors. āCurrent depressionā and ālifetime depressionā were examined to account for the notion that depression can be recurring. Studies included featured samples sizes both of participants of all ages and young adults.Ā In addition to this, they utilized different methods to code the genetic variation.
In addition to this, they even included data from the original Caspi et al. (2003) study in their meta-analysis. Despite these efforts, none of their analyses generated any ācompelling evidence that the 5-HTTLPR S allele increases the risk of major depression in individuals exposed to stress.ā In other words, the idea that a genetic predisposition contributes to depression was not supported in this combined dataset that observed 43,165 participants and numerous studies. They write:
āImportantly, our meta-analyses do not support the hypothesis that in subjects exposed to stress, carrying S alleles for 5-HTTLPR confers a differential and increased risk for either lifetime or current depression compared with the impact of carrying S alleles in subjects who were not exposed to stress. In fact, when the outcome is current depression, the point estimates for the interaction terms are all in the direction opposite of the hypothesis.ā
The results of this study put a prevailing belief on trial by suggesting that the existing combined evidence fails to support the gene-environment interaction effect for depression.
āBased on our findings, we conclude that if an interaction exists in which the S allele of 5-HTTLPR increases risk of depression only in stressed individuals, then it is not a broadly generalizable effect, but must be of modest effect size and only observable in limited situations.ā
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Culverhouse, R. C., Saccone, N. L., Horton, A. C., Ma, Y., Anstey, K. J., Banaschewski, T., … & Goldman, N. (2018). Collaborative meta-analysis finds no evidence of a strong interaction between stress and 5-HTTLPR genotype contributing to the development of depression.Ā Molecular Psychiatry,Ā 23(1), 133. (Link)
How much of this earlier “research” was company funded? I seem to suffer from the paranoid notion that the original hypothesis was developed to provide a rationale for prescribing SSRI’s.
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Good question. And I do believe you are correct, the fraud based, wildly over-utilized in practice, bio-bio-bio only believing, all distress is caused by a “chemical imbalance” in your brain, resulting in a “life long, incurable, genetic mental disorder” lie, was the “rationale for prescribing SSRIās” to millions of people, I do believe.
And when it comes to today’s new psychiatric/psychological theology that adverse childhood experiences create “mental illnesses,” since over 90% of “borderline” blasphemed are in reality mislabeled child abuse survivors. And over 80% of those stigmatized as “depressed,” “anxious,” “bipolar,” and “schizophrenic” today are mislabeled child abuse survivors.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
I’m quite certain the real problem leading to all this misdiagnosis of child abuse survivors, with the DSM disorders, is that the “mental health professionals” can not bill insurance companies for helping any child abuse survivor ever, unless they first misdiagnose the child abuse survivors with the billable disorders. Because child abuse is not an insurance billable DSM disorder.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
Perhaps this systemic problem with the DSM should be addressed? And our “mental health professionals” should get out of the business of turning millions and millions of child abuse survivors into the “mentally ill” with the psychiatric drugs? Especially since covering up child abuse is illegal, as well as morally repugnant, behavior.
Or better yet, perhaps it’s time to finally flush the DSM altogether. Given the reality that all the DSM disorders were confessed to be “invalid” over five years ago, by none less than the head of the National Institute of Mental Health.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml
How long will it take?
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Someone Else–
The NIMH article you cite does suggest getting rid of the DSM, but what you neglected to mention is the alternative they propose.
The alternative diagnostic procedure is heavily dependent on biomarkers that are yet to be found.
This pushes it into the medical model camp, and is perhaps even worse than the DSM, in my opinion
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Depression is still the great enemy. More personal energy is expended in manic defenses against, diversions from, and denials of it than goes into other supposed psychopathological threats to society – addictions, psychopatic criminality….
As long as we are caught in cycles of hoping against despair….as long as our actions in regard to depression are ressurrective, implying that being down and staying down is a sin, we remain Christian in psychology.
Our stance toward depression is a priori a manic defense against it….
Because Christ resurrects, moments of despair, darkening, and desertion cannot be valid in themselves…Our model insist on light at the end of the tunnel,,,therapy more or less consciously imitate this program.
James Hillman
The problem is that we do not want to see the need of depression. Apollonians or people beyond the state of depression do not believe in depression or darkness per se, they believe in resurrection and light. So identity + depression is not a real one for them, no one believe in our depression, they believe that it is a sin.
This is theology, not psychology – to cure state which is beyond the world of body sickness, beyond medicine. This is impossible. Theological pseudo medicine and the terror of health is not an answer for/to human depression. Courage and the truth is the answers.
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The true revolution begins in the individual who ca be true to his or her depression.
James Hillman
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How many people will actually read about this study? Any way we can make it more available? This is stuff that everybody should know but that many people don’t want to believe.
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so we still don’t know the causes of depression…..
is the bio/psy/soc model of causation still important…
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The difficulty starts with the fact that “depression” is not caused by one thing, but tons of different events and effects. For that reason, calling “depression” the problem is both misleading and confusing, and as long as psychiatry starts from this false premise, it will continue to come up with one wrong answer after another.
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steve let’s get down to dirty….
who cares what you call it…
poor people get 15 minutes and drugs…
or maybe some inadequate talking…
if you have money they will kiss your ***.
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True enough! The main cause of “mental illness” is our sick society and its prioritization of profits and its ignoring of the real needs of the human beings that live in and sustain that society.
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I canāt entirely agree with this anymore. I used to think the rich had a different medical care system until I learned more about Lyme. Watch the video of Avril Lavigne crying saying they treat Lyme patients as psychiatric patients āthey treat you like youāre crazyā she said. Many celebrities (and/or their children) have or had battles with Lyme. Tommy Hilfigerās daughter was sick for more than ten years, eventually woke up on a psych unit. She wrote poignantly about that betrayal by her family when they gave up on her in her book Bite Me. Kelly Osbourne was sick for a long time. Shania Twainās career was derailed by Lyme. I wonder if Kate Spade who took her life this year had untreated Lyme. What about Anthony Bordaine? He certainly would have had many chances for exposure to Lyme and associated diseases that effect neurocognition and behavior. Adam Lanza had chronic Lyme and while it may shock the senses for some to defend him given how heinous his actions were, I think it behooves both patients and the medical system to understand how Lyme and associated diseases affect neurocognition and behavior especially with as armed and dangerous as American society is.
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You do make an excellent point. Robin Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Stevie Nicks, Ernest Hemmingway, Judy Garland, Heath Ledger, … the list goes on of rich and famous people whose lives were damaged by “mental health treatment” in the form of prescribed psychiatric drugs. They can afford better “treatment”, but can they find it, or do they even know enough to look?
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No. To look for material causes of depression is a nihilism. The causes of depression are purely psychological. Materialists think theologically about psychology which is a fallacy and a crime against
LOGIC and psyche, crime against death.
They think that when sb is rich, he or she, must be also happy – this point of view actually shows their ignorance and stupidity.
And completely non psychological attitude.
Either childish thinking or theological negation. Grow up, apollonian people. Just grow, up.
The reason of happiness and unity is psychological blindness. Depression means psychological awakening.
Psychosis also is sth beyond material reality, it happened in strictly psychological reality which is not real for apollonian fundamentalists/materialists.
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SPOCK: What you’re describing was once known in the vernacular as a happiness pill. And you, as a scientist, should know that that’s not possible. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6n5ai7
If we ever cure depression we will destroy humanity.
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Good point. Life without pathology is not a life, it is a lie. There was also a great movie about society without emotions -Equilibrium.
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Another “promising gene candidate” bites the dust. But don’t worry, with another 1000-2000 years of research…
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I fell asleep watching a lecture on late Lyme in psychiatric patients by Jane Marke (a psychiatrist with Lyme and whom treats neuro Lyme patients in NYC), and a study was shared that took a snapshot of the inpatient population on a particular hospital unit and showed that 89% of the supposedly ābipolarā patients were seropositive (WB) for Lyme disease, and (a large percentage I cannot remember) of those with a psychosis label were seropositive. Iāll try to find the reference because itās a lot more compelling than the long contested gene theory.
Anyone especially whoās ever been labeled treatment resistant might be interested in watching Dr Markeās Videos on her YouTube channel.
The gene theory should have been published in the journal of irreproducible results. Why do these theories become so pupilar *before* they are replicated? Before they have any validity? How is it this has become almost common knowledge and yet itās so very wrong just like the chemical imbalance theory?
How is it that people with known etiologies like severe trauma or infections with bacteria that are known to easily cross the BBB are still having to defend their brains? Punishing my bad brain didnāt work for me and it doesnāt work for an awful lot of others.
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Dr Markeās technical lecture on Lyme psychiatry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67ffhaTfXzk
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