Research reportChildren at risk for depression: Memory biases, self-schemas, and genotypic variation
Section snippets
Children at risk for depression: memory biases, self-schemas, and genotypic variation
Children of depressed parents are three to five times more likely to develop Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) during adolescence than are children with no family history of psychopathology (Hammen, 2009). Although environmental, psychological, and biological factors have been implicated as playing a role in this increased risk for the development of depression, the precise mechanisms are likely to be complex and multidimensional and are not yet fully understood.
Beck׳s cognitive model of
Participants
Participants were 151 girls between the ages of 9 and 14 (M=12.0, SD=1.5) with no current or past history of Axis I disorders included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Ninety-one of the girls had biological mothers with no current or past DSM-IV Axis I disorder, and 60 girls had biological mothers who had experienced at least two major depressive episodes during their daughter׳s lifetime.
Participant characteristics
Demographic and clinical characteristics, categorized by risk group and COMT polymorphism, are presented in Table 1. A chi-square analysis conducted on race/ethnicity and COMT polymorphism yielded a significant effect, χ2(5, N=157)=11.31, p<.05. Therefore, we included race/ethnicity as a covariate in subsequent analyses. A series of two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs; risk group [low-risk, high-risk]×COMT group [Val/Val, Val/Met, Met/Met]) yielded no significant main effects of risk group or
Discussion and conclusion
The present study was designed to examine memory biases in girls at familial and genetic risk for depression. We did find that girls with both a family history of depression and two COMT Met alleles recalled a lower proportion of positive endorsed adjectives than did high-risk girls with two COMT Val alleles and low-risk girls with two COMT Met alleles. These findings suggest that girls who are homozygous Met carriers and are at familial risk for depression have a less positive self-schema than
Role of funding source
NIMH had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Lauren Asarnow had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interests to disclose.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH074849 awarded to Ian H. Gotlib.
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- 1
Lauren D. Asarnow is now at the University of California, Berkeley.
- 2
Renee J. Thompson is now at Washington University in St. Louis Missouri.
- 3
Jutta Joormann is now at Northwestern University.