Descripción del proyecto
Emplear la psiquiatría evolutiva para comprender la depresión
Cientos de millones de personas en todo el mundo padecen depresión, una afección de la salud mental en gran medida infraestimada debido al estigma social que acarrea o la falta de acceso a pruebas de cribado. Los datos mundiales revelan que el 80 % de las personas diagnosticadas de depresión viven en países de ingresos bajos a medios. En este contexto, el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos DIVERGE investigará cómo influyen la heredabilidad y los factores ambientales en el desarrollo de la depresión. El equipo del proyecto empleará la nueva perspectiva de la psiquiatría evolutiva para determinar si los factores genéticos de riesgo desempeñan un papel en este proceso. En DIVERGE también se estudiará la interacción entre episodios traumáticos de la vida y la susceptibilidad genética. Los resultados proporcionarán información nueva sobre el origen de la depresión.
Objetivo
Depression affects 300 million people and represents one of the biggest challenges to human health to date. Of the burden, 80% pertains to low- and middle-income countries. It is thus imperative to understand the global causes of depression to design effective targeted interventions. DIVERGE will build the first ancestrally diverse data resource for depression, generated from biobanks (N=1.8M) and new studies in Pakistan (N=20K) as well as sub-Saharan Africa (N=13K) with deep phenotyping and genotyping.
Differences in depression risk between populations have been shaped by the environment, demography and diverging evolutionary history. Using the novel perspective of evolutionary psychiatry, DIVERGE will comprehensively characterise the genetic architecture of depression and assess how it has been shaped by natural selection. Thereby, I will illuminate how heritability, environmental factors and their interplay affect disease development. I will develop a new method, trans-ethnic colocalization, to address the fundamental question whether genetic risk factors are transferable across populations. This is important to ensure that health benefits of precision medicine can be shared within and across populations.
In addition to the big picture approach, I aim to identify specific causes of the disorder. The diversity of the data together with the application of population-matched inheritance models will empower the discovery of novel genetic loci for depression. I will develop and apply cutting-edge methods, including trans-ethnic fine-mapping with functional annotations to uncover biological mechanisms underlying depression loci. Trauma, such as exposure to violence, is a strong risk factor for depression. DIVERGE will investigate the interplay between traumatic life events and genetic susceptibility which could help understand how mental illness differs across groups. These innovations will lead to a step change in our understanding of the aetiology of depression.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
WC1E 6BT London
Reino Unido