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Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: The rapid spread of the new Coronavirus and the consequent restrictions to contain transmission generated an unprecedented psychological impact on the general population. The Italian Twin Registry performed a longitudinal study to investigate to what extent genetic and environmental infl...

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Autores principales: Picardi, Angelo, Fagnani, Corrado, Gigantesco, Antonella, Toccaceli, Virgilia, Stazi, Maria Antonietta, Medda, Emanuela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968727/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36860500
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.954737
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author Picardi, Angelo
Fagnani, Corrado
Gigantesco, Antonella
Toccaceli, Virgilia
Stazi, Maria Antonietta
Medda, Emanuela
author_facet Picardi, Angelo
Fagnani, Corrado
Gigantesco, Antonella
Toccaceli, Virgilia
Stazi, Maria Antonietta
Medda, Emanuela
author_sort Picardi, Angelo
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The rapid spread of the new Coronavirus and the consequent restrictions to contain transmission generated an unprecedented psychological impact on the general population. The Italian Twin Registry performed a longitudinal study to investigate to what extent genetic and environmental influences contributed to changes in depressive symptoms. METHODS: Data from adult twins were collected. All participants completed an online questionnaire including the 2-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2) just before (February 2020) and immediately after the Italian lockdown (June 2020). Genetic modeling based on Cholesky decomposition was used to estimate the role of genetic (A) and both shared (C) and unshared (E) environmental factors in the observed longitudinal course of depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Longitudinal genetic analysis was based on 348 twin pairs (215 monozygotic and 133 dizygotic pairs) with a mean age of 42.6 years (range 18–93 years). An AE Cholesky model provided heritability estimates for depressive symptoms of 0.24 and 0.35 before and after the lockdown period, respectively. Under the same model, the observed longitudinal trait correlation (0.44) was approximately equally contributed by genetic (46%) and unshared environmental (54%) influences, while longitudinal environmental correlation was lower than genetic correlation (0.34 and 0.71, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Although the heritability of depressive symptoms was rather stable across the targeted time window, different environmental as well as genetic factors seemed to act before and after the lockdown, which suggests possible gene-environment interaction.
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spelling pubmed-99687272023-02-28 Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic Picardi, Angelo Fagnani, Corrado Gigantesco, Antonella Toccaceli, Virgilia Stazi, Maria Antonietta Medda, Emanuela Front Psychiatry Psychiatry BACKGROUND: The rapid spread of the new Coronavirus and the consequent restrictions to contain transmission generated an unprecedented psychological impact on the general population. The Italian Twin Registry performed a longitudinal study to investigate to what extent genetic and environmental influences contributed to changes in depressive symptoms. METHODS: Data from adult twins were collected. All participants completed an online questionnaire including the 2-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2) just before (February 2020) and immediately after the Italian lockdown (June 2020). Genetic modeling based on Cholesky decomposition was used to estimate the role of genetic (A) and both shared (C) and unshared (E) environmental factors in the observed longitudinal course of depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Longitudinal genetic analysis was based on 348 twin pairs (215 monozygotic and 133 dizygotic pairs) with a mean age of 42.6 years (range 18–93 years). An AE Cholesky model provided heritability estimates for depressive symptoms of 0.24 and 0.35 before and after the lockdown period, respectively. Under the same model, the observed longitudinal trait correlation (0.44) was approximately equally contributed by genetic (46%) and unshared environmental (54%) influences, while longitudinal environmental correlation was lower than genetic correlation (0.34 and 0.71, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Although the heritability of depressive symptoms was rather stable across the targeted time window, different environmental as well as genetic factors seemed to act before and after the lockdown, which suggests possible gene-environment interaction. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9968727/ /pubmed/36860500 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.954737 Text en Copyright © 2023 Picardi, Fagnani, Gigantesco, Toccaceli, Stazi and Medda. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Picardi, Angelo
Fagnani, Corrado
Gigantesco, Antonella
Toccaceli, Virgilia
Stazi, Maria Antonietta
Medda, Emanuela
Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic
title Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in response to covid-19 pandemic
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968727/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36860500
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.954737
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