The depression may be passed down from mother to daughter. This is what emerges from a research carried out by the University of California-San Francisco , whose members examined a sample of 35 families, in which no one had been diagnosed with depression . The team measured the volume of gray matter (GMV) in the cortico-limbic system of parents and children, using magnetic resonance imaging .
The corticolimbic system is the brain structure that regulates mood and depression changes , and includes hippocampus, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Mood disorders such as depression and anxiety are reflected in the changes in this system, and analyzing the data would have revealed an important similarity between the gray matter volumes of the corticolimbic system of mothers and daughters, and a lower similarity as regards those of fathers and sons (both male and female) or mothers and children.
Many factors play a role in depression.
however, the authors of the research explain
Genes that are not inherited from the mother, social environment, and life experiences, to name three; mother-daughter transmission is only part of it.