The serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region and brain-derived neurotrophic factor valine to methionine at position 66 polymorphisms and maternal history of depression: Associations with cognitive vulnerability to depression in childhood

Abstract

Preliminary work indicates that cognitive vulnerability to depression may be associated with variants of the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and the valine to methionine at position 66 (val66met) polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene; however, existing reports come from small samples. The present study sought to replicate and extend this research in a sample of 375 community-dwelling children and their parents. Following a negative mood induction, children completed a self-referent encoding task tapping memory for positive and negative self-descriptive traits. Consistent with previous work, we found that children with at least one short variant of the 5-HTTLPR had enhanced memory for negative self-descriptive traits. The BDNF val66met polymorphism had no main effect but was moderated by maternal depression, such that children with a BDNF methionine allele had a heightened memory for negative self-descriptive traits when mothers had experienced depression during children's lifetimes; in contrast, children with a methionine allele had low recall of negative traits when mothers had no depression history. The findings provide further support for the notion that the 5-HTTLPR is associated with cognitive markers of depression vulnerability and that the BDNF methionine allele moderates children's sensitivity to contextual factors.

Stability of self-referent encoding task performance and associations with change in depressive symptoms from early to middle childhood

“…Similar to our results, Hayden and colleagues (2013) found that positive, but not negative, processing at age 7 predicted depressive symptoms at 8 and 9 years of age. Moreover, Black and Pössel (2013) found that negative processing did not predict depressive symptoms in a 6-month follow-up of an adolescent sample.…”

“…Unfortunately, few studies have examined whether SRET scores predict increases in depressive symptoms in youth. Hayden and colleagues (2013) found that positive processing at age 7 was associated with depressive symptoms at ages 8 and 9, whereas negative processing at age 7 was not associated depressive symptoms at ages 8 or 9. Black and Pössel (2013) also reported that negative processing was not associated with depressive symptoms at a 6 month follow-up, but did not examine positive processing.…”

“…This paper is based on data from the Stony Brook Temperament Study, a longitudinal study of risk for internalizing psychopathology in a large community sample of 3-year-old-children in Long Island, New York (Hayden, Olino, Bufferd, et al, 2013; Olino et al, 2010). 559 children entered the study at age 3; an additional 50 children were recruited at age 6 in order to increase racial and ethnic diversity.…”

“…A film clip was used since a meta-analysis identified clips and stories as the most effective mood induction procedures (Westermann, Spies, Stahl, & Hesse, 1996); further, this procedure has been shown to lead to coded and self-reported reductions in children’s moods in several other studies (Hayden, Olino, Bufferd, et al, 2013; Hayden, Olino, Mackrell, et al, 2013). …”

“…Conversely, depression may also influence cognitive vulnerabilities (Stewart et al, 2004). Hayden and colleagues (2013) found that depressive symptoms at age 7 were associated with negative, but not positive processing two years later; however, they also reported that depressive symptoms at ages 7 and 8 were not related to negative or positive processing assessed one year later. Similarly, Black and Pössel (2013) found that depressive symptoms were not associated with negative processing assessed 6 months later.…”