Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 9104-6299, USA.
J Health Soc Behav. 2010 Sep;51(3):229-43. doi: 10.1177/0022146510378240.
A critical feature of the social stress model is the apparent relationship between stress and depression. Although many studies have demonstrated a connection between the two, the relationship may be contaminated by genes affecting both stress and depression. Using a sample of identical and fraternal twins, this study explores genetic influences on depression and assorted sources of stress while explicitly estimating, and thereby controlling for, gene-environment correlations. I consider both stress and depression in a fine-grained fashion. For the former, the study explores assorted sources of stress, including health and disability, family, unemployment, discrimination, and perceived neighborhood safety, as gene-environment correlations may be stronger for some forms of stress than others. For the latter, the study explores both depressive symptoms and major depressive disorders, as each may entail a different epidemiological process, especially with respect to genes. The results reveal that most, but not all, measures of stress have moderate heritabilities, suggesting that genes influence exposure to the environment in a broad fashion. Yet, despite this, the relationship between stress and depression is generally robust to gene-environment correlations. There are some notable exceptions. For example, allowing for gene-environment correlations, marital conflict is generally unrelated to depression. Moreover, gene-environment correlations are generally stronger for major depression than for depressive symptoms, encouraging further elaboration of the distinction between the onset of depression and its recurrence, especially in the context of genes. These exceptions do not put limits on environmental influence, but do suggest that genes operate in a complex life-course fashion.
社会压力模型的一个关键特征是压力和抑郁之间明显的关系。尽管许多研究表明两者之间存在联系，但这种关系可能受到同时影响压力和抑郁的基因的污染。本研究使用同卵和异卵双胞胎样本，探讨了遗传对抑郁和各种压力源的影响，同时明确估计并控制了基因-环境相关性。我以精细的方式考虑压力和抑郁。对于前者，研究探讨了各种压力源，包括健康和残疾、家庭、失业、歧视和感知邻里安全，因为某些形式的压力比其他形式的压力可能具有更强的基因-环境相关性。对于后者，研究探讨了抑郁症状和重度抑郁症，因为每种情况都可能涉及不同的流行病学过程，尤其是在基因方面。结果表明，大多数但不是所有压力测量指标都具有中度遗传力，这表明基因以广泛的方式影响对环境的暴露。然而，尽管如此，压力和抑郁之间的关系通常对基因-环境相关性具有稳健性。也有一些值得注意的例外。例如，尽管允许存在基因-环境相关性，但婚姻冲突与抑郁一般无关。此外，与抑郁症状相比，基因-环境相关性在重度抑郁症中更为强烈，这鼓励进一步阐述抑郁症发作和复发之间的区别，尤其是在基因背景下。这些例外并没有限制环境影响，但确实表明基因以复杂的生命历程方式运作。
