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Researchers find genetic root for anxiety
November 28, 1996
Web posted at: 9:00 p.m. ESTWASHINGTON (CNN) -- Researchers have found a gene that may dispute the notion that anxiety results from character flaws or weakness.
A team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science that variants of a gene may affect how disposed someone is toward anxiety.
The variants in genes are not the flaws or abnormalities known as mutations. Rather they are slight differences, known as alleles, similar to the differences in genes that control eye and hair color.
"It's very exciting, because there are a whole series of psychiatric diseases that are in this sort of domain of behavior," said Dr. David Goldman of the National Institutes of Health.
The anxiety gene might play a role in phobias, panic attacks, generalized anxiety and perhaps even obsessive-compulsive behaviors.
According to researchers, long alleles produce more of a protein involved with controlling a brain chemical, serotonin. Short ones make less of it. The people with short alleles score higher on psychological tests that measure neuroses, the researchers found.
The gene variant in question is only one of an estimated dozen anxiety-related genes, and researchers estimate the gene causes only about four percent of severe anxiety problems. They stressed that environment and life experiences also play pivotal roles.
Correspondent Jeff Levine and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Psychologists say they can predict who will panic - Nov. 21, 1996
- Finding method in madness - Nov. 15, 1996
Related sites:
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- National Institutes of Health
- Serotonin: The Neurotransmitter for the '90s
- National Panic / Anxiety Disorder News Home
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