summary: Researchers found that the pandemic doubled the incidence of clinical depression among first-year university students, affecting a third of the cohort. Even students with genetic resilience factors, especially young women, were not spared.
The study utilized the ‘Affect Score’ tool, which combines a mental health questionnaire and genetic risk prediction, to provide early prediction and potential prevention of depression. This research is critical to understanding the long-term mental health impacts of the pandemic on young people and developing targeted support strategies.
Important facts:
- The pandemic has doubled rates of clinical depression among college freshmen compared to pre-pandemic levels.
- The Affect Score tool developed by researchers combines mental health questionnaires and genetic data to predict risk of depression.
- The study highlights the diminished role of genetic resilience in the face of heightened pandemic-related stress, especially among young women.
sauce: University of Michigan
Enduring the stress of their first year at university while surviving a historic pandemic left one-third of students suffering from clinical depression, a new study finds. This is twice the rate seen in the same previous study.
And while certain genetic factors appeared to protect first-year students from depression in the years before the pandemic, even students with these protective factors developed symptoms during the pandemic year. I understand that.
In fact, the overall increase in student depression during the pandemic occurred among young women with this type of “genetic resilience.”
However, there is a silver lining to this study.
By studying the experiences and backgrounds of these students in detail over time, scientists may have discovered a way to go beyond genetics to predict which students are more or less susceptible to stress-related depression. not.
The new research Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences By a team at the Michigan Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan.
Possibility of prediction and prevention
The team used the results to develop a tool called the Emotion Score, which combines responses from a variety of standard mental health questionnaires. This score could help universities provide more social and mental health support to those most at risk.
This score may also work in other groups of people, either alone or in combination with genetic risk prediction for depression. However, further research is needed.
The new findings come from a multi-year, longitudinal effort to study the mental health, genetics, personal history, physical activity, and sleep of successive groups of college freshmen. It started years before the pandemic and continues today.
“Students’ experiences during these stressful times will inform future efforts to understand and prevent factors that contribute to increased risk of depression,” says the new paper. said lead author Dr. Huda Akil. Former co-director of the institute. “Understanding it well enough to predict is an important first step toward prevention, early detection, and early treatment of depression.”
Dr. Courtney Turner, lead author and associate research scientist at MNI, said: Fixed by training. ” This may include a summer program before the start of the first year to help students feel more confident and positive when they arrive on campus.
Leverage large amounts of data
The team utilized machine learning tools to develop the sentiment score. The tool was used to comb through every student’s responses to thousands of standardized questionnaires, as well as his Fitbit data on activity and sleep.
Data for the paper comes from students in three student cohorts, one who completed their freshman year before the pandemic and two whose freshman experience was impacted by the pandemic.
At the beginning of their freshman year, all completed 14 standardized questionnaires and underwent an in-depth interview conducted by Virginia Murphy Weinberg, NC, an experienced research nurse. They provided blood and/or saliva samples to be analyzed with UM’s Advanced Her Genomics Score.
Samples were collected using a wide range of biological means before the pandemic, but became more limited in the two COVID-19 cohorts. Nevertheless, they provided monthly saliva samples to measure stress and other hormones. Each student was also given her Fitbit to monitor daily activity and sleep patterns.
The team also followed up with the same questionnaire multiple times throughout the remainder of the freshman year and over the summer or next school year to assess each student’s symptoms of depression and anxiety.
The researchers calculated an individual genetic risk score for depression, called the MDD-PRS, by looking at what genetic variations each student carried in hundreds of thousands of genes.
Men and women with high MDD-PRS scores were more likely than their classmates to develop depression as freshmen in the pre-pandemic era. But once the pandemic hit, genetics became less important.
Men with low MDD-PRS scores remained less likely to develop depression during the pandemic, but women with similarly low scores were not. Meanwhile, the overall risk for student groups with high MDD-PRS scores was not much different from pre-pandemic classes.
The pandemic has not only increased the incidence of depression in women, but also its duration and chronicity. Regardless of genetic profile, women who started their first year of college in 2020 had more chronic depression that lasted from that first year into the summer than women who started college before the year the pandemic hit. The risk of symptoms was more than eight times higher. Research shows.
The study also found that individuals who appear to be more susceptible to depression due to their genetic profile but who did not develop depression despite spending all or part of their freshman year during the pandemic ” was also identified.
“This suggests that when stress becomes strong enough, genetic resilience alone is not enough to buffer against it, especially for women,” Akil said. “But our ability to predict who became depressed by using machine learning to analyze components of their baseline psychological profile was truly surprising.”
She continued, “Both genetic and non-genetic data tell us that nothing is predestined and that there are multiple types of resilience. Universities, regardless of background, We need to think of strategies to help young people enter their new year with a positive mental state and social support to help them overcome stress.”
The team continues to test the Impact Score tool with new students enrolled in 2021, 2022, and this fall. They are also preparing to test a validated psychiatric intervention digital tool that they hope will help reduce risk.
All students who participated in this study were from the University of Michigan. The University of Michigan provides mental health care and mental health support through Counseling and Psychological Services and University Health Services.
Akil and Turner are members of the UM Eisenberg Family Depression Center, which offers multiple programs to support the mental health of college students, including athletes and veterans. For more than 20 years, the center has sponsored a national conference called “Depression on College Campuses.” The next conference will be held in March.
The center also offers a free online depression toolkit to support people suffering from symptoms of depression and those who want to help them.
In addition to Akil, Turner, and Murphy-Weinberg, the research team also included Dr. Huzefa Khalil. and other of his MNI faculty and trainees.
Funding: This research was funded by grants from the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research (N00014-09-1-0598, N00014-12-1-0366, N00014-19-1-2149) and the Hope for Depression Research Foundation. Ta. and Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium Fund LLC. The researchers also used resources from the Michigan Clinical Health Research Institute (TR002240).
About this genetics and depression research news
author: Kara Gavin
sauce: University of Michigan
contact: Kara Gavin – University of Michigan
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Closed access.
“Impact of COVID-19 on a sample of college freshmen reveals genetic and non-genetic forms of stress susceptibility and resilienceWritten by Huda Akil et al. PNAS
abstract
Impact of COVID-19 on a sample of college freshmen reveals genetic and non-genetic forms of stress susceptibility and resilience
Using a longitudinal approach, we use the emergence of symptoms of depression and anxiety as indicators to investigate the interactions between genetic and non-genetic factors in shaping vulnerability and resilience to the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic. I tried to define it.
Freshmen at the University of Michigan were characterized at baseline using multiple psychological instruments. Subjects were genotyped and a polygenic risk score for depression (MDD-PRS) was calculated. Daily physical activity and sleep were recorded. Subjects were sampled at multiple time points throughout their freshman year based on clinical rating scales including her GAD-7 and her PHQ-9 for anxiety and depression, respectively.
To assess the impact of the pandemic, we compared two cohorts (2019-2021) with a pre-COVID-19 cohort. Across the cohort, 26–40% of new students developed symptoms of anxiety or depression (N = 331). Symptoms of depression increased significantly during the years of the pandemic and became more chronic, especially in women.
The pandemic decreased physical activity and increased sleep duration, which correlated with the appearance of mood symptoms. Lower MDD-PRS predicted lower risk of depression during the typical freshman year, but this genetic advantage disappeared during the pandemic. In fact, most of the increase in depression during the pandemic was in women with low genetic risk.
We developed a model that explained approximately half of the variance in follow-up depression scores based on psychological and state characteristics at baseline, contributing to resilience in genetically vulnerable subjects. .
We discuss the concept of multiple types of resilience and the interactions between genetic, gender, and psychological factors in shaping emotional responses to different types of stressors.