The Genetic Blueprint of Major Depressive Disorder: Contributions of Imaging Genetics Studies, by Scharinger et al.

Though not always so strongly formulated, the trend in biological psychiatry moves toward dissolving current nosographic categories and toward identifying the neurogenetic factors involved in depressive symptoms (e.g., Scharinger et al. 2011), diagnostic biomarkers, and biomarkers that will make it possible to prognosticate the illness’s evolution and predict treatment efficacy and clinical response.

Vidal, Fernando and Ortega, Francisco. Being Brains: Making the Cerebral Subject (Forms of Living)....

Abstract

Objectives. To review neuroimaging intermediate phenotypes of MDD and their relation to genetic risk variants. Methods. A systematic literature search of peer-reviewed English language articels using PubMed (www.pubmed.org) was performed.Results. Comprehensive evidence on the infl uence of serotonergic genes ( SLC6A4, HTR1A, MAOA, TPH2) and BDNF onthe following neural intermediate phenotypes is displayed: amygdala reactivity, coupling of amygdala-anterior cingulatecortex (ACC) activity, ACC volume, hippocampal volume and serotonin receptor 1A (5-HT1A) binding potential (BP).Conclusions. Intermediate phenotypes may bridge the gap between genotype and phenotype by reducing the imprecisenessof psychiatric phenotypes and yield more insights into the underlying biology.

Key words: Major depressive disorder, genetics, pharmacogenetics, amygdala, cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, 5-HT1A receptor

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