Associations of Leisure-Time and Occupational Physical Activity and Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Incident and Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder, Depressive Symptoms, and Incident Anxiety in a General Population.

Objective: Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness may help prevent depression and anxiety. Previous studies have been limited by error-prone measurements. We examined whether self-reported physical activity domains and peak exercise capacity (peakVO₂) are associated with incident and recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD), depressive symptoms, and anxiety disorders.

Meta-analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies for Extraversion: Findings from the Genetics of Personality Consortium.

Extraversion is a relatively stable and heritable personality trait associated with numerous psychosocial, lifestyle and health outcomes. Despite its substantial heritability, no genetic variants have been detected in previous genome-wide association (GWA) studies, which may be due to relatively small sample sizes of those studies. Here, we report on a large meta-analysis of GWA studies for extraversion in 63,030 subjects in 29 cohorts.

Meta-analysis of Genome-wide Association Studies for Neuroticism, and the Polygenic Association With Major Depressive Disorder.

Importance: Neuroticism is a pervasive risk factor for psychiatric conditions. It genetically overlaps with major depressive disorder (MDD) and is therefore an important phenotype for psychiatric genetics. The Genetics of Personality Consortium has created a resource for genome-wide association analyses of personality traits in more than 63,000 participants (including MDD cases).

Diagnosed thyroid disorders are associated with depression and anxiety.

Purpose: Associations between thyroid diseases and depression have been described since the 1960s but there is a lack of population-based studies investigating associations of thyroid diseases with depression and anxiety defined by gold-standard methods. Thus, the aim was to investigate the association of diagnosed thyroid disorders, serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels, and anti-thyroid-peroxidase antibodies (TPO-abs) with depression and anxiety.

Methods: We used data from 2142 individuals, who participated in the first follow-up of the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP-1) and in the Life-Events and Gene-Environment Interaction in Depression (LEGEND).

Neuroticism developmental courses--implications for depression, anxiety and everyday emotional experience; a prospective study from adolescence to young adulthood.

Background: Neuroticism is frequently discussed as a risk factor for psychopathology. According to the maturity principle, neuroticism decreases over the course of life, but not uniformly across individuals. However, the implications of differences in personality maturation on mental health have not been well studied so far.

The impact of childhood trauma on depression: does resilience matter? Population-based results from the Study of Health in Pomerania.

Objective: Data suggests that traumatic experiences at early age contribute to the onset of major depressive disorder (MDD) in later life. This study aims at investigating the influence of dispositional resilience on this relationship.

Methods: Two thousand and forty-six subjects aged 29-89 (SD=13.

Psychometric functioning, socio-demographic variability of childhood maltreatment in the general population and its effects of depression.

Maltreatment of children is a major public-health and social-welfare problem but socio-demographic variability has received little attention. This work addresses such variability in a general population cohort and associations with depression. Analyses were based on the cross-sectional SHIP-LEGEND examination among 2265 adults (29-89 years).

The ENIGMA Consortium: large-scale collaborative analyses of neuroimaging and genetic data.

The Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium is a collaborative network of researchers working together on a range of large-scale studies that integrate data from 70 institutions worldwide. Organized into Working Groups that tackle questions in neuroscience, genetics, and medicine, ENIGMA studies have analyzed neuroimaging data from over 12,826 subjects. In addition, data from 12,171 individuals were provided by the CHARGE consortium for replication of findings, in a total of 24,997 subjects.

Borderline personality disorder in four different age groups: a cross-sectional study of community residents in Germany.

Studies examining the natural course of borderline personality disorder (BPD) over the life span have yielded declining prevalence rates in older age groups. However, there is evidence that different BPD symptoms have different longitudinal patterns, with impulsivity decreasing with advancing age and negative affect remaining stable into late adulthood. However, since all studies dealt with treated, clinical samples of BPD patients, it is not yet known whether this represents the natural course of BPD symptoms or just mirrors difference in treatability of these symptoms.

Personality-related factors as predictors of help-seeking for depression: a population-based study applying the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use.

Background: Although the prevalence of mental disorders and the demand for mental health services are increasing, little is known about the impact of personality-related factors on help-seeking among depressive individuals. We, therefore, investigated the relationship between the "Big Five" personality traits, resilience, alexithymia, childhood neglect or abuse, and help-seeking among depressive individuals.

Methods: We used data from 354 persons with a diagnosis of major depression from the population-based cohort study of health in Pomerania within the theoretical framework of the Andersen Behavioral Model of Health Services Use.

Identification of common variants associated with human hippocampal and intracranial volumes.

Identifying genetic variants influencing human brain structures may reveal new biological mechanisms underlying cognition and neuropsychiatric illness. The volume of the hippocampus is a biomarker of incipient Alzheimer's disease and is reduced in schizophrenia, major depression and mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Whereas many brain imaging phenotypes are highly heritable, identifying and replicating genetic influences has been difficult, as small effects and the high costs of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have led to underpowered studies.

[A brief instrument for the assessment of childhood abuse and neglect: the childhood trauma screener (CTS)].

Objective: There is a lack of a psychometrically sound screening questionnaire that assesses important dimensions of traumatic experiences during childhood and adolescence in a time-efficient way. Based on the German version of the "Childhood Trauma Questionnaire" (CTQ, 28 items) we developed a five-item self-report childhood trauma screener (CTS) that covers sexual, emotional and physical abuse and emotional and physical neglect.

Method: The data set of the SHIP-LEGEND study (n = 1668) was used to extract five items of the CTQ that optimally covered the five dimensions and showed a high correlation with the total score.

Moderation of adult depression by the serotonin transporter promoter variant (5-HTTLPR), childhood abuse and adult traumatic events in a general population sample.

The impact of the promoter polymorphisms of the serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) on mood has been studied by two-way interaction models comprising one environmental factor and genotype variants. However, childhood abuse is assumed to be associated with different psychobiological long-term effects than adult traumatic events. Both types of trauma may interact on an individual basis throughout the lifespan moderating the impact of the 5-HTTLPR s allele on depressive disorders.

Genetic epistasis between the brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met polymorphism and the 5-HTT promoter polymorphism moderates the susceptibility to depressive disorders after childhood abuse.

Background: Based on biological interactions between the serotonergic system and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), BDNF is a plausible candidate for a gene-gene-environment interaction moderating the interaction between the s/l- promoter polymorphism of the serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) and childhood abuse. We tested the hypothesis of a three-way interaction with respect to depressive symptoms.

Methods: 2035 Caucasian subjects from the Study of Health in Pomerania (German general population) completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire.

Moderation of adult depression by a polymorphism in the FKBP5 gene and childhood physical abuse in the general population.

Childhood maltreatment and depressive disorders have both been associated with a dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The FKBP5 gene codes for a co-chaperone regulating the glucocorticoid-receptor sensitivity. Previous evidence suggests that subjects carrying the TT genotype of the FKBP5 gene single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1360780 have an increased susceptibility to adverse effects of experimental stress.

Childhood maltreatment, the corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor gene and adult depression in the general population.

Dysregulations of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis have been implicated in the pathogenesis of depressive disorders and the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) was found to modulate emotional memory consolidation. Recently, two studies have reported an interaction between childhood abuse and the TAT-haplotype of the CRH-Receptor Gene (CRHR1) connecting childhood adversities and genetic susceptibility to adult depression. We tested the hypothesis of an interaction of childhood maltreatment with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotypes of the CRHR1 gene not previously investigated.