Abstract
Purposes: Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a well-established characteristic that predisposes to the development of panic attack and several anxiety disorders. It has been suggested that AS is interactively influenced by genetic and environmental factors such as childhood maltreatment. Serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) is regarded as a strong candidate genetic factor for AS. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of childhood maltreatment and SLC6A4 polymorphism, and their interaction on AS by gender.
Methods: Participants were 139 women and 77 men recruited from undergraduate psychology students. They were requested to genotyped for the SLC6A4 polymorphism and complete the measures for AS, Connor Davidson Resilience scale (CDRS) and childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ). We classified the SLC6A4 polymorphism into the three functional triallelic genotypes: La/La; La/Lg or La/S; and Lg/Lg or Lg/S or S/S. The interaction and main effects of SLC6A4 polymorphism and childhood maltreatment on AS were analyzed by general linear models in all subjects and then in gender-stratified groups. All of the analyses were repeated using the classical biallelic classification without separating Lg from La
Results: High AS score was observed in female gender and participants with childhood maltreatment. In GLM analysis for AS in total subjects, there were significant main effects of gender (p=0.011) and CDRS but interaction effect between SLC6A4 genotype and childhood maltreatment was not observed. However, in separate GLM models by gender, the interaction effect was significant in females (p=0.044) but not in males. In males, there was significant main effect of childhood maltreatment (p=0.039) only. When we perform same analyses using biallelic classification, these gender specific interaction effect were not observed.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that there is gender specificity of the effects of the SLC6A4 polymorphism, childhood maltreatment, and their interaction on AS.