ArticleThe American journal of psychiatry2017
Genetic Heterogeneity in Depressive Symptoms Following the Death of a Spouse: Polygenic Score Analysis of the U.S. Health and Retirement Study.
Article in The American journal of psychiatry, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- The predictive value of polygenic risk scores for depression in gene-environment interaction studies: a systematic review.Translational psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The role of social and genetic factors in partnership trajectories and later life health.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- An exploration into the causal relationships between educational attainment, intelligence, and wellbeing: an observational and two-sample Mendelian randomisation study.Npj mental health research · 2024Article
- Genetic influences on depression and selection into adverse life experiences.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Association of polygenic scores for depression and neuroticism with perceived stress in daily life during a long-lasting stress period.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2023Article
- Detecting genetic heterogeneities in response to trauma: The case of 9/11.SSM. Mental health · 2022Article
- Genetic and psychosocial stressors have independent effects on the level of subclinical psychosis: findings from the multinational EU-GEI study.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2022Article
- The impact of anorexia nervosa and BMI polygenic risk on childhood growth: A 20-year longitudinal population-based study.American journal of human genetics · 2022Article
- Article
- A Polygenic Approach to Understanding Resilience to Peer Victimisation.Behavior genetics · 2022Article
- Mental health and music engagement: review, framework, and guidelines for future studies.Translational psychiatry · 2021Review
- Short-Term Mental Health Sequelae of Bereavement Predict Long-Term Physical Health Decline in Older Adults: U.S. Health and Retirement Study Analysis.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2021Article
- Genomics and psychological resilience: a research agenda.Molecular psychiatry · 2019Review
- A genome-wide association study-derived polygenic score for interleukin-1β is associated with hippocampal volume in two samples.Human brain mapping · 2019Article
- Glycated Hemoglobin and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Adults With and Without Diabetes.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2019Article
- Genetic Risk for Rheumatoid Arthritis is Associated with Increased Striatal Volume in Healthy Young Adults.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Genome-wide analyses of psychological resilience in U.S. Army soldiers.American journal of medical genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric genetics : the official publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics · 2019Article
- Genetic and Environmental Risk Factors Associated With Trajectories of Depression Symptoms From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.JAMA network open · 2019Article
- Geographic Clustering of Polygenic Scores at Different Stages of the Life Course.The Russell Sage Foundation journal of the social sciences : RSF · 2018Article
- Swedish Register Analysis of Divorce and Alcohol Use Disorder Highlights Social Relationships as a Target for Preventive Psychiatry and Genetic Research.The American journal of psychiatry · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveExperience of stressful life events is associated with risk of depression. Yet many exposed individuals do not become depressed. A controversial hypothesis is that genetic factors influence vulnerability to depression following stress. This hypothesis is often tested with a "diathesis-stress" model, in which genes confer excess vulnerability. The authors tested an alternative formulation of this model: genes may buffer against depressogenic effects of life stress.
methodThe hypothesized genetic buffer was measured using a polygenic score derived from a published genome-wide association study of subjective well-being. The authors tested whether married older adults who had higher polygenic scores were less vulnerable to depressive symptoms following the death of their spouse compared with age-matched peers who had also lost their spouse and who had lower polygenic scores. Data were analyzed from 8,588 non-Hispanic white adults in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a population-representative longitudinal study of older adults in the United States.
resultsHRS adults with higher well-being polygenic scores experienced fewer depressive symptoms during follow-up. Those who survived the death of their spouses (N=1,647) experienced a sharp increase in depressive symptoms following the death and returned toward baseline over the following 2 years. Having a higher well-being polygenic score buffered against increased depressive symptoms following a spouse's death.
conclusionsThe effects were small, and the clinical relevance is uncertain, although polygenic score analyses may provide clues to behavioral pathways that can serve as therapeutic targets. Future studies of gene-environment interplay in depression may benefit from focus on genetics discovered for putative protective factors.
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