Genes and depression

Clearly, depressive illnesses run in families. But researchers have not yet located a single, defective gene responsible for the condition. Still, a host of studies have revealed that multiple gene variants, acting in concert with environmental stresses, can trigger psychiatric disorders. So while depressed parents don't pass on depression per se to children, the way they pass on hair or eye color, they can pass on a vulnerability to depression.

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Indeed, a depressed parent or sibling increases one's risk of developing the condition threefold. Studies of identical twins have been especially revealing. Researchers studying identical twins (who possess the same genetic code) have found that when one twin becomes depressed, the other twin also develops depression in 76 percent of cases. It would be easy to argue that this happens simply because they have shared the same early childhood experiences and, often, similar life stressors, too. But even when identical twins are raised apart, they will both become depressed 67 percent of the time. Fraternal twins have a much lower incidence of this kind of shared depression--only 19 percent of those whose twin is depressed will develop depression.

Bipolar disorder has an even stronger genetic trail. When one parent has bipolar disorder, there is a significant chance that the child will develop some kind of clinical depression. When both parents have the disorder, the likelihood of passing it on to the children is even higher. Studies of families in which members of each generation develop bipolar disorder found that those individuals who develop the illness have a somewhat different genetic makeup from those who do not. However, it is important to note that not everyone with the genetic makeup that causes vulnerability to bipolar disorder will develop the illness. Additional factors, possibly stresses at home, work, or school, can act as triggers.