Depression and alcohol use disorders as gendered phenotypes of 5-HTTLPR

Citation

Hamby, Bryant W. (2014). Depression and alcohol use disorders as gendered phenotypes of 5-HTTLPR. 2014 Add Health Users Conference. Bethesda, MD.

Abstract

The serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region has been associated with both depression and alcohol use disorders, but this association has not been consistent. Previous research on mental health has posited that depression and alcohol use disorders are functionally equivalent manifestations of distress, with men displaying alcohol use disorders and women displaying depression in response to stress. Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this paper tests the hypothesis that the presence of the risk-conferring serotonin gene alleles increases an individual's chance of expressing distress as either depression or alcohol use disorders in Wave IV in response to stressful life events (SLEs) encountered in Wave III, depending on gender. Increased symptoms of depression are expected for females who encounter SLEs with 1 or 2 copies of the risk alleles compared to others, while increased symptoms of alcohol use disorders are expected for males who encounter SLEs with 1 or 2 copies of the risk alleles compared to others. There are two regression models testing for the number of symptoms of either depression or alcohol use disorders, while controlling for the number of depressive symptoms or the number of weekly drinks from the previous wave respectively. Further, fixed effects among sibling pairs are used in order to control for population stratification and the models will be stratified by sex, which will be used as a proxy for gender.

URL

https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/docs/events/20140613_Add_Health_Users_Conference_Abstracts.pdf

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

2014 Add Health Users Conference

Author(s)

Hamby, Bryant W.

Year Published

2014

City of Publication

Bethesda, MD

Reference ID

6255