Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Dev Psychobiol. 2023 Jul;65(5):e22400. doi: 10.1002/dev.22400.
Prepartum depression is associated with early adversity, pregnancy complications, preterm delivery, postpartum depression, and long-term effects on child neurodevelopment. The oxytocin (OXT) system is affected by early adverse experiences and has been associated with depression. In the current study, we investigated risk factors for prenatal depressive symptoms, mainly the effects of early childhood and adolescence trauma, in combination with the presence of certain variants of polymorphisms of OXT and OXT receptor (OXTR) genes. We hypothesized that early childhood and adolescence trauma has higher negative effects in carriers of genetic variants of the OXT/OXTR system, increasing their risk for depression. Early in pregnancy (8-14 weeks), 141 pregnant women from a Uruguayan population were asked to provide DNA samples and complete questionnaires that assessed their experience of child abuse, depression symptoms, and other variables that included demographic information. Our results showed that 23.5% of pregnant women had depressive symptoms. Several OXT and OXTR genetic variants were associated with higher risk of prepartum depression only in those pregnant women who suffered emotional abuse during infancy or adolescence. Logistic regression (Nagelkerke's R = .33) revealed that women who suffered early abuse and were carriers of the variants CC of rs2740210 (OXT) or AA of rs237887 (OXTR) had significantly higher risk of experiencing depressive symptoms. Antecedents of psychiatric disorders also contributed to the risk of depression. We conclude that emotional abuse contributes to the risk of depression in different ways in women carrying different OXT and OXTR genetic variants. Early detection and closer follow-up of women with child abuse and certain OXT genetic variants, among other risk factors, could reduce the long-term impact of prepartum depression.
产前抑郁症与早期逆境、妊娠并发症、早产、产后抑郁症以及对儿童神经发育的长期影响有关。催产素（OXT）系统受早期不良经历的影响，并与抑郁症有关。在目前的研究中，我们调查了产前抑郁症状的危险因素，主要是童年和青少年创伤的影响，以及 OXT 和 OXT 受体（OXTR）基因的某些变体多态性的存在。我们假设，童年和青少年创伤对 OXT/OXTR 系统遗传变异携带者的负面影响更大，增加了他们患抑郁症的风险。在怀孕早期（8-14 周），141 名来自乌拉圭人群的孕妇被要求提供 DNA 样本并完成问卷，以评估她们的儿童虐待经历、抑郁症状和其他包括人口统计学信息的变量。我们的结果表明，23.5%的孕妇有抑郁症状。几种 OXT 和 OXTR 遗传变异仅与那些在婴儿期或青少年时期遭受情感虐待的孕妇产前抑郁症的风险增加相关。逻辑回归（Nagelkerke 的 R = .33）显示，早期遭受虐待且携带 rs2740210（OXT）CC 或 rs237887（OXTR）AA 变体的女性经历抑郁症状的风险显著增加。精神疾病的前兆也促成了抑郁的风险。我们得出结论，情感虐待以不同的方式在携带不同的 OXT 和 OXTR 遗传变异的女性中增加了患抑郁症的风险。早期发现和更密切地随访遭受儿童虐待和某些 OXT 遗传变异的女性以及其他风险因素，可能会降低产前抑郁症的长期影响。
