The heterogeneity of Depression: Towards a better understanding of the biological basis (PhD Experiment 5: Go No / Go ERPs: Impact of depression and genetics)
Proposal details
| Title: | The heterogeneity of Depression: Towards a better understanding of the biological basis (PhD Experiment 5: Go No / Go ERPs: Impact of depression and genetics) |
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| Research Area(s): | Depression |
| Background: | Rationale (Experiment 5): A better understanding of the impact of depression and genotype (5-HTT, BDNF) on behavioural impulsivity and neural inhibition may provide further insight into the biological heterogeneity of depression. |
| Aims: | Aim of Experiment 5: To examine the impact of depression and genotype (5-HTT, BDNF) on behavioural impulsivity and neural inhibition. Research Question/s: • Do differences in 5-HTT and BDNF genotype impact on go/no-go ERPs over and above depression? • Does genetic variance interact with diagnoses to heighten the behavioural and neural impairment observed in response inhibition? Hypotheses: • It is expected that depressed patients with a genetic predisposition (particularly in the 5-HTT gene) toward depression will exhibit higher levels of impulsivity compared to depressed patients without a genetic predisposition. • It is hypothesised that a gene x gene interaction will heighten the behavioural and neural impairment observed in completing the response inhibition task. |
| Method: | Methodology: Various ANOVAs and Regression techniques will be conducted. For example, an ANOVA will be conducted using a between-group (diagnosis: MDD versus control; 5-HTT: SS, SL, LL; BDNF: M/M, M/V, V/V) x within-subject design including, site (frontal, central, parietal) and hemisphere (left, right). The impact of subtype, anxiety comorbidity and suicidality will also be examined. Cluster and discriminant function analyses will be conducted to determine whether a combination of brain, body and cognitive measures is able to distinguish the between group variables, diagnosis and allelic variants. |