What is it about?
Major depression (MD) often emerge in late childhood and adolescence. As such, identifying early risk factors for MD, such as depressive symptoms, could help future efforts towards preventing this severe and devastating mental disorder. In this study, the authors examined whether genetic risk for broadly defined depression derived from studies using adults could predict MD and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. They further investigated how child abuse, a known risk factor for MD, contributes to child and adolescence depression in the light of genetic risk. They found that both the genetic risk for adult MD and depressive symptoms and exposure to childhood abuse were associated with clinical levels of depression, age at onset, as well as increased risk for the development of depressive symptoms over time. This study is the first to show that genetic risk of adult MD and depressive symptoms may serve as a marker of risk for MD in youth prior to clinically interfering symptoms emerge.