AIMAN INAM
NEW YORK: We have learnt through a number of published studies that drug exploitation triggers intellectual health concerns. Nevertheless, according to latest findings, a person’s hereditary menace for psychological sickness, including depression, can hook them to drugs.
The study senior author from the Washington University in St. Louis, Caitlin E. Carey held: “Our research shows that if someone is genetically predisposed towards having mental illness, they are also prone to use licit and illicit substances and develop problematic usage patterns. We were able to compare people with various levels of substance involvement to determine whether they were also at relatively higher genetic risk for psychiatric disorders.”
The panel of scientists here has run through the records of approximately 2,573 individuals who were contributors of the Study of Addiction: Genetics and Environment. They evaluated the participants’ substance use, abuse and their addiction to drugs.
Another experienced author and director of the BRAINLab, Ryan Bogdan noted: “This also allowed us to evaluate specific psychiatric disorder-substance relationships. For example, we found that genetic risk for both schizophrenia and depression are associated with cannabis and cocaine involvement.”
Bogdan further maintained: “It will now be important to incorporate the influence of environmental factors, such as peer groups, neighborhood, and stress, into this research. This will help us better understand how interplay between the environment and genetic risk may increase or reduce the risk of co-occurring psychiatric disorders and substance involvement.”
He said further it would be important to isolate specific genetic pathways shared with both substance involvement and psychiatric illness. Ultimately, such knowledge may help guide the development of more effective prevention and treatment efforts decades in the future.”
Their findings have appeared in the study published by Frontiers in Genetics.
