Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (3)
Document Type
- Journal article (2)
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
Keywords
- 5HTTLPR (1)
- Angst (1)
- Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (1)
- Catechol-0-Methyltransferase (1)
- Furcht (1)
- Generalisierung (1)
- Generalization (1)
- Konditionierung (1)
- Medizin (1)
- NPSR1 (1)
- Stathmin (1)
- Tripartite Model (1)
- anxiety (1)
- contextual fear conditioning (1)
- fear conditioning (1)
- fear-potentiated startle (1)
- gene × gene interaction (1)
Background: Panic disorder is common (5% prevalence) and females are twice as likely to be affected as males. The heritable component of panic disorder is estimated at 48%. Glutamic acid dehydrogenase GAD1, the key enzyme for the synthesis of the inhibitory and anxiolytic neurotransmitter GABA, is supposed to influence various mental disorders, including mood and anxiety disorders. In a recent association study in depression, which is highly comorbid with panic disorder, GAD1 risk allele associations were restricted to females. Methodology/Principal Findings: Nineteen single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) tagging the common variation in GAD1 were genotyped in two independent gender and age matched case-control samples (discovery sample n = 478; replication sample n = 584). Thirteen SNPs passed quality control and were examined for gender-specific enrichment of risk alleles associated with panic disorder by using logistic regression including a genotype6gender interaction term. The latter was found to be nominally significant for four SNPs (rs1978340, rs3762555, rs3749034, rs2241165) in the discovery sample; of note, the respective minor/risk alleles were associated with panic disorder only in females. These findings were not confirmed in the replication sample; however, the genotype6gender interaction of rs3749034 remained significant in the combined sample. Furthermore, this polymorphism showed a nominally significant association with the Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire sum score. Conclusions/Significance: The present study represents the first systematic evaluation of gender-specific enrichment of risk alleles of the common SNP variation in the panic disorder candidate gene GAD1. Our tentative results provide a possible explanation for the higher susceptibility of females to panic disorder.