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.

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.

The impact of cognitive reserve on neurocognitive performance in Major Depressive Disorder.

Cognitive reserve may mitigate the degree of cognitive deficit observed in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), confounding attempts to fully characterize the nature of these deficits. In this study, cognitive reserve was examined as a potential moderator of neurocognitive deficits in MDD. Unmedicated, currently depressed patients with MDD (n = 269), and healthy volunteers (n = 143) were compared on measures assessing psychomotor speed, interference processing, verbal memory, visual memory, and executive functioning.

The lack of meaningful association between depression severity measures and neurocognitive performance.

Background: Neurocognitive deficits are common in depression, but most prior studies have not found strong associations between standard measures of symptom severity and the extent of these neurocognitive deficits. Diagnostic heterogeneity, or the lack of specific questions about neurocognition in these measures, may be undermining these associations.

Method: Neuropsychological performance was assessed via 10 tasks in a sample of 262 unmedicated patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and compared to that in healthy volunteers (n = 140), then correlated with (1) standard measures of depression severity including the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Beck Depression Inventory, (2) previously established, factor-analytically derived symptom factors that characterize the heterogeneity of these scales, and (3) a separate measure of cognitive complaint (Cognitive Failures Questionnaire) that was included to address the absence of specific questions about cognition in standard rating scales.

Higher 5-HT autoreceptor binding as an endophenotype for major depressive disorder identified in high risk offspring - A pilot study.

Higher serotonin-1A (5-HT) receptor binding potential (BP) has been found in major depressive disorder (MDD) during and between major depressive episodes. We investigated whether higher 5-HT binding is a biologic trait transmitted to healthy high risk (HR) offspring of MDD probands. Data were collected contemporaneously from: nine HR, 30 depressed not-recently medicated (NRM) MDD, 18 remitted NRM MDD, 51 healthy volunteer (HV) subjects.