Does Neuroticism Cause Depression? A Mendelian Randomization Study

Speed, D.; Hemani, G.; Speed, M. S.; Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium,; Boerglum, A. D.; Oestergaard, S. D.

doi:10.1101/420703

bioRxiv · 10.1101/420703

Does Neuroticism Cause Depression? A Mendelian Randomization Study

Speed, D.·Hemani, G.·Speed, M. S.·Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium,·Boerglum, A. D.·Oestergaard, S. D.

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Abstract

Neuroticism is a heritable personality trait, characterized by negative emotions such as worrying, feelings of guilt, loneliness and being easily hurt. Increased levels of neuroticism are associated with poor mental health - development of depression in particular - but it remains uncertain whether this association represents a causal effect [1]. Here, we use Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate whether neuroticism is a causal risk factor for development of depression.\n\nMR is an analytic approach to assess the causality of an observed association between a risk factor and a clinically relevant outcome [2]. MR is particularly useful in situations where randomized controlled trials are not possible and observational studies provide biased associations because of confounding or reverse causality. MR uses genome-wide association study (GWAS) data to identify instrumental variables (single nucleotide polymorphisms; SNPs) for a risk f ...

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Speed, D., Hemani, G., Speed, M. S., Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium,, Boerglum, A. D., Oestergaard, S. D.. 2018-09-18. Does Neuroticism Cause Depression? A Mendelian Randomization Study. https://doi.org/10.1101/420703

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