Brain serotonin 1A receptor binding: relationship to peripheral blood DNA methylation, recent life stress and childhood adversity in unmedicated major depression.

Background: Childhood and lifetime adversity may reduce brain serotonergic (5-HT) neurotransmission by epigenetic mechanisms.

Aims: We tested the relationships of childhood adversity and recent stress to serotonin 1A (5-HT) receptor genotype, DNA methylation of this gene in peripheral blood monocytes and 5-HT receptor binding potential (BP) determined by positron emission tomography (PET) in 13 brain regions, in participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy volunteers (controls).

Method: Medication-free participants with MDD ( = 192: 110 female, 81 male, 1 other) and controls ( = 88: 48 female, 40 male) were interviewed about childhood adversity and recent stressors and genotyped for rs6295.

Avoidant attachment transmission to offspring in families with a depressed parent.

Background: Insecure attachment is associated with mental health morbidity. We explored associations between parent and offspring attachment style in a longitudinal study of families with a depressed parent.

Methods: Parents (N = 169) with a DSM-IV mood disorder and their adult offspring (N = 267), completed the Adult Attachment Questionnaire at one or more time points during up to 9.

The Temporal Dynamics of Emotion Regulation in Subjects With Major Depression and Healthy Control Subjects.

Background: Emotion regulation (ER) processes help support well-being, but ineffective ER is implicated in several psychiatric disorders. Engaging ER flexibly by going online and offline as needs and capacities shift may be more effective than engaging ER rigidly across time. Here, we sought to observe the neural temporal dynamics of an ER process, reappraisal, during regulation of responses to negative memories in healthy control subjects (n = 33) and subjects with major depressive disorder (n = 36).

Examining the relationship between gray matter volume and a continuous measure of bipolarity in unmedicated unipolar and bipolar depression.

Background: It has been argued that unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD) exist on a continuous spectrum, given their overlapping symptomatology and genetic diatheses. The Bipolarity Index (BI) is a scale that considers bipolarity as a continuous construct and was developed to assess confidence in bipolar diagnosis. Here we investigated whether BI scores correlate with gray matter volume (GMV) in a sample of unmedicated unipolar and bipolar depressed individuals.

Smaller left hippocampal subfield CA1 volume is associated with reported childhood physical and/or sexual abuse in major depression: A pilot study.

Background: Smaller hippocampal volumes are reported in adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) and in reported childhood abuse. The hippocampus is a complex structure with distinct functional subfields. We sought to examine the effect of MDD diagnosis and childhood abuse on hippocampal subfields.

Large-scale network dynamics in neural response to emotionally negative stimuli linked to serotonin 1A binding in major depressive disorder.

Serotonergic dysfunction is implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD), but the mechanisms of this relationship remain elusive. Serotonin 1A (5-HT) autoreceptors regulate brain-wide serotonin neuron firing and are positioned to assert large-scale effects on negative emotion. Here we investigated the relationship between raphe 5-HT binding and brain-wide network dynamics of negative emotion.