Temperament is hereditary.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Researchers have recently found that anxious parents are more likely to have anxious children, after discovering temperament is hereditary.
The study from the Department of Psychiatry and the HealthEmotions Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows how an over-active brain circuit involving three brain areas inherited from generation to generation may set the stage for developing anxiety and depressive disorders, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison News.
These included three survival-related brain regions, namely the amygdala, the limbic brain fear centre and the prefrontal cortex, reported the Daily Mail.
“Over-activity of these three brain regions are inherited brain alterations that are directly linked to the later life risk to develop anxiety and depression,” says senior author Ned Kalin, chair of psychiatry at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. “This is a big step in understanding the neural underpinnings of inherited anxiety and begins to give us more selective targets for treatment.”
By studying nearly 600 young rhesus monkeys from a large multi-generational family, Kalin and his colleagues found that about 35 percent of variation in anxiety-like tendencies is explained by family history.
Similar to humans, monkeys can be temperamentally anxious and pass their anxiety-related genes on to their offspring.
The study is slated to be published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Now that we know where to look, we can develop a better understanding of the molecular alterations that give rise to anxiety-related brain function,” Kalin said. “Our genes shape our brains to help make us who we are.”