GenGeoRisk · Genetics, Geography and the Intergenerational Transmission of Maternal Depression Risk
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-02-01 → 2023-01-31
- EU contribution
- €214,159
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Genetics, Geography and the Intergenerational Transmission of Maternal Depression Risk
This project entitled, ‘Genetics, Geography and the Intergenerational Transmission of Maternal Depression Risk (GenGeoRisk)’ combines rich geographical data on the entire Norwegian population, with genetic data on ~250, 000 participants from the Norwegian Mother Father and Child Study (MoBA) to tackle three key research barriers in depression genetics: 1) lack of success in identifying genetic variants specific to maternal depression; 2) ) inadequate account of environmental risk factors in genetic research; and 3) heterogeneity in how we define depression across studies. The MSCA Research Fellow conducting this research has advanced expertise in genetic methods and when combined with tailored training in environmental models, she achieved the projects overall research objective of improving prediction of women’s depression. This research is of acute interest to society because we can all name a family member, close friend, colleague, or acquaintance who has suffered from depression and by 2030 depression is predicted to be the largest contributor to disease burden worldwide. A key conclusion from this action is that variation in women's depression is not only influenced by mothers genes and her environments, but also the genes of her partner and child, which has important implications for reducing depressive symptoms in women. Our results support positive effects on women's depression when improving the mental health of their partners and children. Importantly, results show that indirect effects of partner and child genes on women's depression vary across the childbearing years with particularly pronounced effects on younger mothers. GenGeoRisk has also developed a new approach to modelling longitudinal cohort datasets like MoBa by using repeated measurements on the same women and their relatives. In doing so, the project has reduced some of the heterogeneity hindering depression studies and has provided new clues for finding the 100's of 1000's of genes that interplay with our environments to produce complex mental health problems
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
We can all name a family member, close friend, colleague or acquaintance who has suffered from depression. It is a common, pervasive and devastating illness characterised by persistent episodes of low mood. Depression affects individuals across all geographical locations and by the year 2030 it will be the largest contributor to disease burden worldwide. Depression that occurs in women during pregnancy and post-partum is referred to as maternal depression (MD). MD is the leading cause of perinatal mortality and it accounts for ∼20% of all postpartum deaths. Despite this profound individual and societal burden, the aetiology of depression remains poorly understood in part, due to three research barriers: 1) lack of success in identifying genetic variants specific to MD 2) inadequate account of environmental risk factors in genetic research and 3) heterogeneity. GenGeoRisk will address each of these research barriers in the following ways: 1) I will use aggregates of genetic variants (polygenic scores) derived from other successful studies of psychiatric traits to calculate genetic p—a general dimension, which sits at the top of a hierarchical structure of psychopathological dimensions and captures one’s general liability to psychopathology. Genetic p will be used to predict MD symptom risk and resilience in the world’s largest (N= 240 000) pregnancy cohort (MoBa; the Norwegian, mother, father and offspring cohort study) 2) I will use geographical location data from the entire Norwegian population (> 7 000 000) that has been recently linked to MoBa data to illuminate how MD symptoms and genetic p vary across neighbourhoods and diverse Norwegian municipalities 3) I will focus on MD, a less heterogeneous form of major depression, and use genetic p to discover MD subtypes. GenGeoRisk will be the first intergenerational, multi-environmental and DNA based investigation of MD to date.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITETET I OSLO · OsloCoordinatorNorway
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/894675
- https://www.sv.uio.no/psi/english/research/projects/GenGeoRisk/index.html
Data: CORDIS, © European Union