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An international team of researchers has identified 124 new genetic regions related to neuroticism.
Considering that scientists had previously ranked only 16 associated genetic loci, this discovery marks a major step towards understanding what fuels psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.
Led by statistical geneticist Danielle Posthuma from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the group conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of nearly 450,000 people.
The study – which compares participants' DNA – highlights the undeniable fact that everyone has neuroses, whether it is anxiety, nerves or general discomfort.
"Neuroticism is a very complex trait and we have found a lot of genes that are involved," co-author Sophie van der Sluis, an assistant professor at the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research at VU, said in a statement issued by the Daily mail.
"People may think that it is the company in a hurry today, where we have so much to do, which makes us more nervous and neurotic," she continued. "But in fact, some people will thrive on this pressure, where others find it more difficult to cope with these demands."
According to earlier studies on the family, 40% of the differences in people with neurosis are based on their genes, "inherited from their parents," said van der Sluis.
(All these years to blame my mother for my anxiety finally paying.)
The team also identified two "subgroups" of neuroticism: "depressed affect" and "anxiety".
Those in the first group – characterized by hesitant moods and feeling "miserable for no reason" – are more likely to gain weight, smoke and die at a young age based on their genetic makeup.
Worriers' genes, on the other hand, make them less susceptible to weight gain. Daily mail reported.
These results, published in the journal Genetics of nature, are not the end-all-being-all of mental health; there is still a lot of work to do before all the implications can be understood.
But the research opens up "new leads and testable functional assumptions to unravel the neurobiology of neuroticism," the team said.
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