Children of strict parents are more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms in adolescence and later in life.
- All the young people who participated in the study were between 12 and 16 years old. In both groups, 11 adolescents were boys.
- “Stress experienced in childhood can lead to a general tendency towards depression later in life by altering the reading of DNA,” according to the team.
“We found that parental perception of harshness is a strong determinant of biological risk for depression in adolescence and later.” This was declared by Evelien Van Assche, a researcher at the University of Münster in Germany, during the congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacologywhich takes place in Vienna from October 15 to 18.
44 teenagers completed a questionnaire about their education
To achieve this discovery, Evelien Van Assche and other German scientists made a study, the results of which were presented during the congress. As part of their work, they recruited 21 teenagers who said they had a “positive” upbringing (for example, parents who supported them and helped them to be independent) and 23 young people who said they had a severe (eg, manipulative behavior, physical punishment, excessive severity).
The team then measured the level of methylation at more than 450,000 places in each participant’s DNA. The authors recalled that methylation is a normal process that occurs when a small chemical molecule is added to DNA, changing the way the instructions written in your DNA are read. For example, methylation can increase or decrease the amount of an enzyme produced by a gene. “It is known that increased variation in methylation is associated with depression,” they specified.
Strict upbringing alters children’s DNA reading
According to the results, the methylation rate was higher in adolescents who reported having had a strict upbringing. “We found that the perception of harsh upbringing, with physical punishment and psychological manipulation, can introduce an additional set of instructions about how a gene is read to be ‘hardwired’ into DNA. These changes can predispose the child to depression. This does not happen to the same extent if the children have received a ‘positive’ upbringing”, explained Evelien Van Assche.
Now scientists want to know if it’s possible to link it to a diagnosis of depression and perhaps use this increased variation in methylation as a marker, to identify and warn people who are at higher risk. to develop depression because of their upbringing.
