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Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners
What is the role of genetics in the diagnosis of depression?
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Richard Hill
Counsellor, Psychotherapist
Resident counsellor/psychotherapist at the Davis Health Centre with a solution focused approach; an international lecturer on the neuroscience and psychosocial genomics of human behaviour; author … View Profile
We don’t tend to use genetics or gene assays to try and work this thing out because there are so many behavioral aspects which make it quite clear. Certainly one can go into the genetics and then have a look when someone is diagnosed through their behavior and start to examine what perhaps are the background elements. The role of genetics is not so much in the diagnosis but perhaps later on in the development of a clearer picture and a clearer understanding of why that individual has the depression.
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Dr Simon Easterbrook-Smith
Health Professional
My research interests include immunology and the mechanisms of amyloid formation. The latter has implications for people who are dealing with Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease … View Profile
Adding a bit to what Richard wrote (which I agree with):
Generally about 50% of the differences in complex human behaviours (intelligence, personality, risk of mental illness, etc, etc) between people correlate with genetic differences. The other 50% correlates with (poorly understood) environmental effects and there are probably genetics:environment interactions as well.
However, the genetic effects almost certainly involve different forms (technically, alleles) of many (100s) of genes.
One line summary: genetic analysis is not (so far) helpful in therapy for depression.
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