Browsing by Subject "masennus"

Aims. There is a growing body of research indicating that childhood experiences interact with genetic vulnerabilities in the development of depression. Parent-child relationship quality has been shown to have a critical role in the development of depression later in life. Moreover, research has shown that the quality of parenting can also have long-term and persistent effects on various neurobiological systems, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Indeed, the impaired function of HPA axis has been the most consistently found association with depression. This makes genes related to HPA axis regulation of particular interest to researchers. One possible candidate gene is FK506 binding protein 51 (FKBP5) gene, which has been shown to interact with adverse childhood experiences in predicting future risk of depression. This study examines whether perceived quality of parent-child relationship predicts depressive symptoms in adulthood and whether this association is moderated by the FKBP5 polymorphisms. Methods. This study is part of The Helsinki Birth Cohort Study. Total of 1 667 subjects completed a psychological questionnaire in 2004, including the Beck Depression Inventory (21 item, BDI) and the Parental Bonding Instrument (25 item, PBI). This study utilised the three factor structure of PBI; care, denial of psychological autonomy and encouragement of behavioral freedom, which were measured separately for mother and father. The study looked at three FKBP5 gene polymorphisms: rs1360780, rs9394309 and rs9470080 extracted from the genome-wide data genotyped with modified Illumina 610k array. The study utilised two models 1 and 2; model 1 adjusted for age and gender and additionally model 2 adjusted for childhood and adulthood socioeconomic status (SES) as well as separation experiences. Results and conclusions. As hypothesised and in line with previous studies the quality of parenting predicted depressive symptoms in adulthood. Participants, who perceived having received more care and encouragement of behavioral freedom reported fewer depressive symptoms. Whereas denial of psychological autonomy resulted in reporting more depressive symptoms. None of the polymorphisms predicted depressive symptoms. More importantly, this is the first study to show that FKBP5 polymorphisms modify the relationship between perceived mother-child relationship and depressive symptoms. Among participants with two minor alleles, perceived lack of maternal care and maternal denial of psychological autonomy were most strongly associated with more depressive symptoms. Participants with one minor allele had similar results. Whereas among participants with two major alleles, perceived parenting had a smaller effect on the amount of depressive symptoms. These findings indicate that in addition to adverse experiences and traumas, also deficiencies in parenting can predispose to depression depending on the amount of minor alleles in FKBP5 polymorphisms.

Objectives. Obesity and depression are global health problems that cause enormous burden to the society as well as to the individuals. There is supposed to be a bidirectional association between obesity and depression which means that obesity cause depression and depression cause obesity. Previous research has partially supported this view, although there have been only few studies focusing on bidirectional association so far. This study examined whether there is a bidirectional association between obesity and depressive symptoms and how potential confounders and risk factors explain this relationship. Methods. The sample of this study (n = 1272) is part of an ongoing Young Finns Study, which began in 1980. Young Finns Study is an extensive Finnish population based follow-up study that examines cardiovascular risk factors from childhood to adulthood. Subjects were randomly chosen from the national register and data originally consisted of 3596 children and youths. Weight and depressive symptoms were measured in 2001 and 2007 and the confounders and risk factors in 2001. Examined confounders and risk factors in this study were socioeconomic status, social support and health behavior. Weight was examined by calculating body mass index and depressive symptoms were measured by using a modified version of the Beck Depression Inventory. Subjects of this study were 30–45 years old in 2007. Results and conclusions. Bidirectional association between obesity and depressive symptoms was found in this study. However, obesity did not predict change in depression nor did depression predict change in obesity in six years. In addition, male gender, higher age, low socioeconomic status, higher consumption of alcohol and low attention to health behavior functioned as risk factors for obesity. Risk factors for depressive symptoms were female gender, lack of social support and low attention to health behavior. These factors also partly explained the association between obesity and depressive symptoms. To conclude, in the current study there was a bidirectional association between obesity and depression, which was partly explained by confounders and other risk factors.

Depression is a phenomenon determined by multiple factors and it can be conceptualized both from psychological and physiological point of view. Psychological and physiological risk factors form a vulnerability that predispose to depression. The purpose of this study was to research the relationship between the psychological risk factors of depression and physiological stress reactivity. Cloninger's temperament trait harm-avoidance (Temperament and Character Inventory) and tendency for ruminative thinking (Self-rumination Scale) were used as psychological risk factors in this study. The physiological stress reactivity was measured by the individual differences in the heart rate variability. 58 women were invited to laboratory based on the earlier web-based study (n=588). In laboratory the women answer to self-report questionnaires and their EKG was measured under a stressful task. Study found a statistically significant association between psychological risk factors of depression and physiological stress reactivity. Psychological risk factors of depression constituted a whole that predicted physiological stress reactivity in a specific experimental setting in a statistically significant way. The results of this study can be used as a foundation for the development of more effective medical interventions and psychotherapies, and for the development of more specific categorization of depressive subcategories.

Depression is a psychiatric disorder composed of several clusters of symptoms, which do not necessarily reflect common pathways of pathophysiological processes. Thus, a new conceptualization of depression has been proposed, which suggests that depression should be dissected to its key components instead of treating it as one homogeneous concept. Personality trait neuroticism is a risk factor that is consistently linked with depression. Several models have been suggested for the association between neuroticism and depression. One of them is a so-called common cause -model, which assumes that a shared etiology explains the co-occurrence of the two. Research from twin studies supports this notion, as neuroticism and depression have been found to share a large proportion of their genetic basis. However, earlier research has examined depression as a composite concept, and there are no studies to date which would have examined the shared genetic basis of specific symptoms of depression in relation with neuroticism. This study tests the common cause -model by estimating, whether the same genetic and environmental components are relevant in explaining the covariation between neuroticism and specific symptoms of depression. The data used in this study was from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study (n = 1515, av. age = 62.0). Depression was measured with The Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression Scale (CES-D), and separate analyses were conducted for three factors: somatic complaints, (lack of) positive affect and depressed affect. The results showed that all of the depressive symptoms shared the same genetic and environmental components when modeling the association with neuroticism, which supports the common cause -model. Over a half of the phenotypic correlation was explained by genetic influences between neuroticism and somatic complaints, as well as neuroticism and positive affect. Half of the co-variation between neuroticism and depressed affect was due to genetic influences. Findings of the current study suggest, that genetic and individual specific environmental influences are important in explaining the relationship in all of the symptoms. For future endeavors, it is suggested to search for concrete risk factors and neurobiological endophenotypes that are shared between specific symptoms and neuroticism. While the use of composite concept of depression was supported in this study, the research question has not been yet examined in molecular genetic studies. A twin model can only differentiate sources of variation, not concrete risk factors. Thus, the results presented here only apply in the context of twin modeling. Also, the robustness of the results should be tested by replicating the results among younger samples.

Objective: Substance use has been seen as a way to cope with stress and to influence internal states. Because stressful life events have been considered as a risk-factor for depression, the connection between stressful life events and depression offer an interesting framework to investigate the effects of self-medication. This study examined how stressful life events, alcohol usage and smoking effect depression, and if substance use moderates the relationship between stressful life events and depression. Methods: This research is part of an older Finnish Twin Cohort study and data from the 2011 follow-up questionnaire study was used. Additionally data from questionnaire studies conducted in 1981 and 1975 was used to control for educational achievement. Depression was assessed with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) questionnaire. Alcohol consumption was assessed by used grams per month and smoking was measured by smoking status, based on a detailed smoking history. Stressful life events were measured by 12 questions designed to gather information on a wide range of experiences. Multi-level logistic regression analyses were used to account for clustered twin pairs. In addition twins were compared with pairwise t-tests. Results and conclusions: Stressful life events, smoking and greater alcohol usage predicted depression. Genetic and familial-environmental background did not entirely explain the observed associations, but evidence suggests causality. Especially dependent life events, in which the person has had a substantial contribution, seemed to be related to depression. The amount of used alcohol or smoking did not reduce the relationship between stressful life events and depression. If tobacco and alcohol are used as self-medication, they do not seem to have the wanted effects, at least not in the long run.

Objective. Depression is a prevalent mental disorder with negative impact on health and well-being. After decades of research, there remains a need for a better understanding of its etiology and developing its treatment. Network theory views depression as a heterogeneous system, as opposed to a unidimensional, latent factor that causes its symptoms. In network theory, depressive symptoms are assumed to differ in their risk factors, such as personality traits. High neuroticism is a well-known risk factor for depression while extraversion and conscientiousness protect from it. However, only a few studies have examined personality traits as risk factors for individual depressive symptoms. The purpose of this study was to examine whether individual depressive symptoms are predicted by different personality traits. Depressive symptoms were assumed to vary in their risk and protective factors. The connections were assumed to remain when controlling for the latent depression factor. Methods. The data used was a part of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) (N = 4852). Depressive symptoms were measured with CES-D (The Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression Scale), which consists of 20 symptoms. Personality was measured with an abbreviated version of BFI-54 (Big Five Inventory). Personality was assessed in 1993 and depressive symptoms in 2004. Associations between personality traits and individual depressive symptoms were examined with ordinal regression analyses. To test whether the connections were locally independent of latent depression, an ordinal regression procedure for detecting differential item functioning (DIF) was used. Results and conclusions. Depressive symptoms differed in their personality risk and protective factors. Connections between personality traits and depressive symptoms could not be explained by a latent depression factor. High neuroticism was a risk factor while extraversion and conscientiousness were protective factors for several central and common symptoms of depression. Also openness to experience and agreeableness mostly protected from some depressive symptoms. The results apply to less severe depressive symptoms in the general population and support earlier findings of depressive symptoms having qualitative differences. Deeper knowledge on the risk and protective factors of individual depressive symptoms can contribute to the development of more specific methods for preventing and treating depression.

Aims. Attachment has been linked to children's psychiatric symptoms. However, only a few studies have focused on parental attachment towards the child. Most studies have focused on parent's general attachment representations, which do not address the parental subjective attachment to their child. The aim of this study is to examine whether parental subjective attachment towards the child is associated with child's internalizing and externalizing symptoms and total problems. We also examine whether maternal or paternal depression, child temperament or gender affect the aforementioned associations. Methods. This study is a part of Prediction and Prevention of Pre-eclampsia (PREDO) – study. The size of the current study sample was 2021 mothers and 1273 fathers and their children. Maternal and paternal attachment were assessed with the Maternal/Paternal Postnatal Attachment Scale (MPAS/PPAS) – self report questionnaire when the child was six months old. Child's internalizing, externalizing and total problems were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist 1½-5 (CBCL1½-5) – questionnaire when the child was 1.5 to 5 years old. The associations were investigated using linear regression analysis, controlling for maternal or paternal attachment and several sociodemographic factors related to the child and parents. Results and conclusions. Results indicated that secure maternal and paternal attachment was associated with less internalizing, externalizing and total problems in children. Parental depression and child's temperamental traits mediated the association of parental attachment and child's psychiatric symptoms. Maternal attachment was also independently associated with child's psychiatric symptoms. An interaction effect was found between maternal attachment and child's negative emotionality in relation to child's total problems: insecure maternal attachment and child's high negative emotionality were associated with more total problems in childhood. These results provide evidence that both parents' subjective attachment is related to child's psychiatric symptoms, and also highlight the significance of child's temperament in the development of psychiatric symptoms.