In an analysis of genetic data from more than 1.2 million people from different ethnic groups, scientists were able to identify 115 genes associated with anxiety.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness worldwide, affecting approximately 301 million people in 2019. Although there are several types of anxiety disorders, they can all have a significant impact on daily life .
One way to combat this impact is to better understand the risk factors for developing an anxiety disorder, and this is where genetics and the team of researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University (USA) come in.
115 genes associated with anxiety were found
They analyzed large-scale genomic data, along with information about how those genes are expressed, from six different cohorts totaling 1,266,780 participants, and identified 115 .
How might these genes increase the risk of developing anxiety? The authors of the study identified a possible answer by analyzing the regions of the brain where these genes are expressed. They found associations with several brain areas involved in anxiety, including the cerebellum and the limbic system.
“This effort underscores the power of large-scale genetic studies in unraveling the complex pathogenesis of anxiety, demonstrating how multiple genes acting on brain functions contribute to defining individual genetic risk,” lead author of the study.
The researchers also found that genes that could increase the risk of anxiety are linked to conditions such as pain and gastrointestinal disorders, the latter of which are often associated with anxiety, as well as other psychiatric disorders such as depression.
A study different from what has been done so far
Although this is not the first time that scientists have investigated anxiety, a major obstacle to these studies is that they frequently rely on participants of European descent, meaning that the results cannot be generalized to all populations.
To address this issue, the researchers used data from individuals from five different ethnic groups: European, African, mixed American (people with a combination of European, sub-Saharan, and Native American ancestry), South Asian, and East Asian.
“By studying anxiety disorders in five different ethnic groups for the first time, we were able to uncover the genetic architecture of these disorders with greater strength of genetic association,” said Dr. Eleni Friligkou, study author.
“Our effort underscores the importance of increasing diversity in genetic studies to better understand ethnic-specific correlates of anxiety disorders, but also to harness the power of genetic discovery across ethnicities,” she says.
The study was published in .
