抑郁的遗传与环境交互作用(G×E)机制已成为富有挑战性的前沿课题之一。然而,既有G×E研究大多关注遗传基因与不利环境的交互作用,相对忽视了积极环境的影响。本研究以1025名青少年为被试,运用问卷法与DNA分型技术,采用间隔3年的追踪设计(T1小学六年级—T2初中三年级),考察MAOA基因rs6323多态性与母亲支持性教养对青少年抑郁的交互作用以及性别在其中的调节作用,并同时采用新兴的探索性与验证性方法检验G×E交互作用的素质–压力假说与不同易感性假说。结果显示,MAOA基因rs6323多态性与母亲支持性教养行为交互作用于女青少年的抑郁,母亲支持性教养显著负向预测GG基因型女青少年的抑郁,但对TT基因型女青少年抑郁的预测作用并不显著,该交互作用符合不同易感性假说。MAOA基因rs6323多态性与母亲支持性教养对男青少年的抑郁无显著交互作用。本研究发现推进了抑郁遗传机制的研究,并为不同易感性假说提供新的研究证据。
Depression is among the most prevalent, disabling and costly mental health conditions worldwide. Adolescence is a critical time for studying the vulnerability to depression as there is dramatically increasing risk for its onset during this period. Research has demonstrated that MAOA gene played an important role in the development of depression and maternal parenting was also tightly associated with depression. More importantly, accumulating evidence of gene-parenting interactions has been observed in recent years. However, most of these studies have largely focused on adverse rearing environments such as childhood abuse, and rarely on positive parenting. Moreover, most of them were guided by the diathesis-stress model and "risk alleles" assumption, whereas the genes could be "plasticity" rather than "risk" according to the differential susceptibility model. The present study aimed to examine the interaction between MAOA rs6323 polymorphism and maternal supportive parenting on adolescent depression, and further test these two competing models: diathesis-stress vs. differential susceptibility. One thousand and twenty five adolescents(male = 679) from 39 classes of 14 primary schools in Jinan City were followed from grade 6 till to grade 9. Adolescent depression was accessed using Children's Depression Inventory(CDI), and mothers were asked to report their supportive parenting(including warmth and encouragement of autonomy) via the Chinese version of Child-Rearing Practices Report(CRPR). DNA samples of adolescents were extracted from their saliva to genotype the MAOA rs6323 polymorphism. Statistically, two newly-developed approaches, Ro S(regions of significance) method and re-parameterized regression models were used to examine the interaction between rs6323 polymorphism and maternal supportive parenting on adolescent depression and further test the two competing G×E hypotheses. The main findings of the present study were as follows: The MAOA rs6323 polymorphism significantly