Citation

Aslund C, Nilsson KW. J. Neural. Transm. 2018; 125(6): 977-993.

Affiliation

Centre for Clinical Research Västerås, Västmanland County Hospital Västerås, Uppsala University, 721 89, Västerås, Sweden. kent.nilsson@regionvastmanland.se.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00702-018-1854-8

PMID

29427067

Abstract

The gene-environment interaction research field in psychiatry has traditionally been dominated by the diathesis-stress framework, where certain genotypes are assumed to confer increased risk for adverse outcomes in a stressful environment. In later years, theories of differential susceptibility, or biological sensitivity, suggest that candidate genes that interact with environmental events do not exclusively confer a risk for behavioural or psychiatric disorders but rather seem to alter the sensitivity to both positive and negative environmental influences. The present study investigates the susceptibility properties of the serotonin transporter-linked polymorphic region (5HTTLPR) in relation to depressive symptoms and delinquency in two separate adolescent community samples: n = 1457, collected in 2006; and n = 191, collected in 2001. Two-, three-, and four-way interactions between the 5HTTLPR, positive and negative family environment, and sex were found in relation to both depressive symptoms and delinquency. However, the susceptibility properties of the 5HTTLPR were distinctly less pronounced in relation to depressive symptoms. If the assumption that the 5HTTLPR induces differential susceptibility to both positive and negative environmental influences is correct, the previous failures to measure and control for positive environmental factors might be a possible explanation for former inconsistent findings within the research field.

Language: en

Keywords

Antisocial behaviour; Depression; Emotion regulation; Gene–environment interaction; Human; SERT; SLC6A4