title: A Preliminary Examination of the Relationship Between the5-HTTLPRand Childhood Emotional Abuse on Depressive Symptoms in 10-12-Year-Old Youth.
abstract: Childhood emotional abuse (CEA) is a pervasive problem associated with negative sequelae such as elevated depressive symptoms. Key stress-related genes, such as the5-HTTLPRpolymorphism, interact with childhood abuse to produce elevated depressive symptoms in older adolescent girls, but not in older adolescent boys. To date, studies have not examined this relationship as a function of CEA specifically or among younger adolescents. To extend prior work, we examined the effects of the5-HTTLPRand CEA on depressive symptoms among 10-12-year-old youth. Based on previous findings, we expected a main effect of CEA on depressive symptoms among all youth, but only expected an interactive effect between the5-HTTLPRand CEA on depressive symptoms in girls. In the current study, 222 youth (mean age 11.02 years, 44.1% girls, 51.6% Caucasian, 33.0% African American, 2.7% Latino, and 12.7% other) and their parent(s)/guardian(s) completed the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Emotional Abuse subscale of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and provided saliva samples for genotyping the5-HTTLPR. Results indicate that CEA, but not the5-HTTLPR, was related to elevated depressive symptoms among boys. Among girls, each copy of the s allele of the5-HTTLPRwas related to increased depressive symptoms, but only for those who had experienced CEA. Our results extend prior findings by specifically examining CEA and by focusing on 10-12-year-old youth. These results, although preliminary, suggest that focusing on the interplay between putative genetic markers and a broader range of environmental events, such as CEA, might allow researchers to determine factors differentially influencing the later emergence of sex differences in depressive symptoms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland College Park.
authors.forename: Anne N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Banducci
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Virginia Commonwealth University.
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gomes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland College Park.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: MacPherson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland College Park.
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Lejuez
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, Neurobiology, and Child Study Center, Yale University.
authors.forename: Marc N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Potenza
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, Genetics, and Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gelernter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University.
authors.forename: Ananda B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Amstadter
keywords: 5-HTTLPR; depressive symptoms; early adolescence; emotional abuse; sex differences