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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Michael Bell on March 4, 2009, at 22:42:31
This study is especially interesting since it was tested in humans as opposed to mice or other non-primates. I really think genetic testing is the next level of progress in psychiatric meds. Anway, here it is. An experiment with results posted on March 2, 2009, so very recent:
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers - in collaboration with scientists at the University of California at San Diego and Yale University - have discovered perhaps the strongest evidence yet linking variation in a particular gene with anxiety-related traits. In the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the team describes finding that particular versions of a gene that affects the activity of important neurotransmitter receptors were more common in both children and adults assessed as being inhibited or introverted and also were associated with increased activity of brain regions involved in emotional processing.
"We found that variations in this gene were associated with shy, inhibited behavior in children, introverted personality in adults and the reactivity of brain regions involved in processing fear and anxiety," says Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD, of the MGH Department of Psychiatry, the report's lead author. "Each of these traits appears to be a risk factor for social anxiety disorder, the most common type of anxiety disorder in the U.S."
It has long been recognized that the tendency to anxiety disorders can run in families and is believed to be influenced by the interaction of several genes. Because of the different forms of these disorders and their complex patterns of inheritance, identifying specific susceptibility genes has been difficult. Studies in mice have associated an area of chromosome 1 with anxious temperament, particularly the gene that codes for a protein called RGS2, which mediates the activity of neurotransmitter receptors that are also the targets of many antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. Mice in whom RGS2 is knocked out exhibit increased fearful behavior.
To more comprehensively investigate the role of RGS2 in humans, the researchers conducted several experiments. They analyzed blood samples from children from 119 families who had participated in an earlier study assessing their reactions to unfamiliar situations at the ages of 21 months, 4 and 6 years. The participants had been evaluated on their levels of behavioral inhibition, a form of temperament linked to increased risk of anxiety disorders.. Testing several sites in the RGS2 gene identified nine variations that appeared to be associated with inhibition.
The second experiment involved more than 700 college students who had completed questionnaires designed to measure several personality traits. Analyzing blood samples from this group, the research team genotyped the four gene markers that had demonstrated the strongest effects in the first group. They found that the versions associated with inhibited behavior in the children were also more common in the college students who scored high on measures of introversion, a personality trait that also involves social inhibition.
Another group of 55 college students had functional MRI brain imaging done after they had completed a standard interview screening for anxiety and mood disorders. While in the MR scanner, the participants viewed a series of faces expressing various emotions, a test that previously was shown to influence activity in the amygdala, a brain structure involved in emotion processing. Participants with the inhibition/introversion-associated alleles also had increased activity of the amygdala and the insula, another anxiety-related brain region.
"Now we need to investigate whether these RGS2 variants actually are associated with particular disorders and how they act on a cellular level," says Smoller, an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "We hope that ultimately this work will lead to new drug targets and treatment options for anxiety disorders."
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, NARSAD (National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression), The Rose and Eugene Kleiner Family Foundation and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Co-authors of the Archives of General Psychiatry report are Jesen Fagerness, Shaun Purcell, PhD, Lesley Yamaki, Dina Hirshfeld-Becker, PhD, Joseph Biederman, MD, and Jerrold Rosenbaum, MD, MGH Psychiatry; Martin Paulus, MD, and Murray Stein, MD, MPH, University of California at San Diego; and Joel Gelernter, MD, Yale University School of Medicine.
Posted by Neal on March 5, 2009, at 21:09:22
In reply to Scientists ID gene in socially inhibited people, posted by Michael Bell on March 4, 2009, at 22:42:31
____
"I really think genetic testing is the next level of progress in psychiatric meds."Michael,
I heard a brain researcher say that the next decade will reveal that behaviors which up to now have been thought of as caused by being "bad", "evil", "good", adventurous, homebody, and so on is very much influenced by genetic factors.
I just hope that once the information is gathered it doesn't leak, as these things have a habit of doing. I know Congress passed the Genetic Privacy Law, but I don't trust entirely.
thanks for the info,
~neal
___
Posted by linkadge on March 6, 2009, at 6:22:34
In reply to Re: Scientists ID gene in socially inhibited people, posted by Neal on March 5, 2009, at 21:09:22
Its been all talk this past decade. This gene or that gene. What does it matter if they can't implement effective medications?
Linkadge
Posted by Michael Bell on March 6, 2009, at 7:16:25
In reply to Re: Scientists ID gene in socially inhibited people, posted by linkadge on March 6, 2009, at 6:22:34
I look at it as the opposite: How can they make effective medications if they don't know what the genetic root of the problem is?
> Its been all talk this past decade. This gene or that gene. What does it matter if they can't implement effective medications?
>
> Linkadge
Posted by desolationrower on March 6, 2009, at 16:57:51
In reply to Re: Scientists ID gene in socially inhibited peopl » linkadge, posted by Michael Bell on March 6, 2009, at 7:16:25
well looking for genes tied to the syndromes defined in the DSM is super-ultra-guinessbook-retarded. looking for genetic predispositions to the personality traits that predispose to illness might have some value.
-d/r
Posted by Michael Bell on March 8, 2009, at 16:32:16
In reply to Re: Scientists ID gene in socially inhibited peopl, posted by desolationrower on March 6, 2009, at 16:57:51
Agreed. DSM categories are just labels for conditions that are not fully understood. However, if there are genes that are identified which predispose certain people to develop illneses, whether mental, physical or emotional, then then that is a huge step forward. An even bigger step forward would be development of effective treatment, such as gene therapy, as a result of those findings.
> well looking for genes tied to the syndromes defined in the DSM is super-ultra-guinessbook-retarded. looking for genetic predispositions to the personality traits that predispose to illness might have some value.
>
> -d/r
Posted by Vincent_QC on March 15, 2009, at 6:52:49
In reply to Re: Scientists ID gene in socially inhibited peopl » desolationrower, posted by Michael Bell on March 8, 2009, at 16:32:16
> Agreed. DSM categories are just labels for conditions that are not fully understood. However, if there are genes that are identified which predispose certain people to develop illneses, whether mental, physical or emotional, then then that is a huge step forward. An even bigger step forward would be development of effective treatment, such as gene therapy, as a result of those findings.
>
> > -d/r
>The DSM is the DSM...mean that even, if you read it, you will be totally lost somewhere between two conditions. That's hard to make a good prognostic about the mental illiness you have when you read that kind of book...who is THE BIBLE for the psychiatric world and psychologist also...
I have the last edition of the book and I never was able to put me in a strict category...I can't even told you if the social phobia is still a real social phobia problem since it can be also an avoindance personnality type of anxiety...I can't told you also if I have agoraphobia or not with my panic disorder, since sometimes I can feel very good in a place where it's full of people and I don't see an escape or I don't do a plan in my head in case I have to escape of that place... but most of the time, if i'm in a social situation or a social context who I have to talk with strangers and interract with other peoples or do a public speech, I will do a panic attack...or have symptoms of the panic attack without having a "real" big panic attack...but those symptoms can last severals hours, until I get out of that social situation.
The DSM is also not very clear about depression...can I put myself in the depressive category because I lack any motivation, I don't have energy, I do insmonia at night and sleep at daytime, I lost interrest in everything I liked before, I don't enjoy my life anymore??? I don't think I fit in the depression category, because all of this are comorbidities that comming directly from an untreat social phobia disorder or social anxiety...I don't know now who to write it...that's so lame...
Anyway, for now, I stay on my position...the SAD is probably one of the hardest mental illiness to treat and I don't think they will find soon others kind of treatments who are linked to genes... That's probably a genetic for sure, but a lot of diseases are also genetic, the research link them to specific genes...but they are not able to developp treatments for those diseases...
The proof for no new treatments is that they continue to do studies who make the older ones not good or usefull or true...like the study about the level of D2 who is now not linked to the SAD problem...and the fact that older drugs like Parnate, Nardil or Marplan seem to be A WAY more usefull for the social anxiety disorder...but not so powerfull for treatment resistant depression.
Well I just feeling I had to write all of this so sorry...lol
Hummm BIG news this morning... A Doctor in research for anastesia and neurotic pain was find guilty because he was giving false results for studies about new treatments to reduce more rapidly the pain after a surgery by using Neurotin, Lyrica and Celebrex!!! Pfizer paid this Doctor for those studies, especially for the ones about the Lyrica poroduct...but they claim that they never uses those studies for the launch of the Lyrica product on the market of the neurotic painkiller and to be approved by the FDA...Anyway, i'm sure some people here see this in news this morning...it's everywhere in the news papers...I can't recall the name of the Doctor but he changed a lot of results in a good amount of studies...
Maybe others studies are not good also, who know??? That's hard to tell when you are not a Doctor... if you don't test a med by yourself, you will never know the answer...and even if you are answering to the med, maybe it will be a placebo reaction or maybe it will be a true reaction about the med... That's make me also a lot septic about the genetics and the SAD problem...some people answer very well to newer drugs like the SSRI's or the SRNI's...or even to the benzos drugs...and others don't answer to anything and will live all their life with the SAD disease... if it's genetic, why someone can answer to a med and someone else don't??? The same apply to a lot of others meds... Did we live in a society where PLACEBO effect is more important than REAL results??? Did ever antidepressants meds works for real or not??? It is just a massive suggestives answer to meds that people experienced because they know the med is suppose to be effective??? That's hard to tell... especially when you seem to be treatment resistant like me!!!
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