Genetics and neurobiology of anxiety and depression

Major Depressive Disorder, and related anxiety disorders, are familial conditions whose mechanisms are largely undiscovered. Approached to dissecting their heterogeneity and better understanding their mechanisms include better phenotypic measurement, prospective longitudinal assessment and the use of large population-based cohorts. We demonstrate using data from a prospective cohort study (The Bipolar Family Study) of people at high genetic risk of mood disorder, the functional, structural and connectivity imaging changes associated with the later development of depression. In addition, we use a novel genetically-informed approach to the study of genome-wide association data that utilises the correlation between cognitive, personality and other phenotypic measures of depression – to aid gene discovery in the disorder.