How gene research is entering the child protection arena

16 January 2008

The flurry of new research on how children’s genes and environments combine to make them more vulnerable – or more resistant – to a host of problems, provokes a simple question: so what?

It might be interesting to know that certain genes are behind certain conditions, but how, if at all, does such knowledge help us to help children? Can it ever do more than identify the children who are likely to do better or worse over their lifetimes?

The answer to this question is given passing attention in a recent article in Development and Psychopathology, which describes a study of the influence on adolescent depression of genetic make-up and the experience of maltreatment.

In the closing paragraph, Dante Cicchetti, a leading scholar in the field of developmental psychopathology and professor at the University of Minnesota, here joining forces with colleagues at the University of Rochester, suggests that knowing what genes and what experiences in combination lead to bad outcomes might help researchers to identify the types of drugs or counseling that could significantly alter a child’s prospects.

In other words, drugs and therapy may help to correct the negative effects of genes and environments. The association between the serotonin transporter gene and depression is one example. A wide variety of medications have been developed to treat depression by increasing the level of the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Cicchetti and company looked at 339 low-income adolescents, some of whom had experienced maltreatment by their parents and some who had not. They interviewed the young people and also took swipes from the inside of their mouths to collect information about their genetic make-up.

They found that the teens’ genes and their environments played a part in their emotional well-being. More specifically, adolescents who were extensively maltreated and had a low level of the MAOA gene (monoamine oxidase A) were susceptible to high levels of depression.

However, teens who had experienced similarly high levels of maltreatment but also had high levels of MAOA were not as vulnerable. Another gene (referred to as the HTT short/short genotype), when combined with a history of sexual abuse, tended to lead to depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms.

Certainly all efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect must continue unabated. But this new line of research could help us to figure out who are the most vulnerable maltreated kids and how they can be helped.

• Summary of “Interactions of child maltreatment and serotonin transporter and monoamine oxidase A polymorphisms: Depressive symptomatology among adolescents from low socioeconomic status backgrounds” by Dante Cicchetti, Fred A. Rogosch, Melissa L. Sturge-Apple in Development and Psychopathology, 2007, Volume 19, Issue 4, pp 1161-1180.