Inhibition in schizophrenia
Inflammation and depression
Health use patterns
Not so identical
Visual empowerment
Drug risks
Medication and memory
Stress and neurons
Virtual treatment
Mapping brain networks
Neurons and dendrites
Alcohol on the brain
Connecting for care
Parkinson’s and proteins
Personality and treatment
Driving reactions
Parenting profiles
The Toronto plot
Not so identical
How can one identical twin develop depression while the other doesn’t?
[Answer]
Within each cell in our body, chemical or molecular changes turn genes on or off. These are called epigenetic factors. Stress, diet or medications are environmental factors that can alter a person’s epigenetic profile, but epigenetic changes can also happen naturally.
This figure was created using Circos, a software that creates circular visualizations. It shows an epigenetic analysis of 100 pairs of identical twins, in which one twin had major depressive disorder and the other did not.
In the figure, the twins with depression were shown to have a higher density of epigenetic differences than their unaffected siblings. This suggests that these epigenetic factors may contribute to their illness. These findings are part of a larger study looking at new strategies to map epigenetic changes in depression.
Source: Dr. Art Petronis, Dr. Gabriel Oh