Resilience in the Face of Stressors: Relation to Polymorphisms in Genes Coding for Neuropeptide-Y and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor

The university experience can pose as a significant stressor and can lead to development of a psychopathology. Resilience may be an important protective factor against mental illness. The goals of the present study were to examine the relationships between social behaviours with depressive symptomatology and whether these relationships were moderated by polymorphisms in NPY (rs16147) and BDNF (Val66met). First year undergraduate students (N=196) at Carleton University of Euro-Caucasian decent completed questionnaires and provided saliva samples for genotyping. Relationships were found between psychological well-being, emotion-focused coping, social connectedness and loneliness, and depressive symptomatology, which were moderated by the NPY genotype. The relationship between psychological well-being and depressive symptomatology was moderated by the BDNF genotype. Gender moderated the relationship between unsupportive interactions from parents and depressive symptomatology. Together, these findings suggest that NPY, BDNF and gender interact with social behaviours to predict depressive symptoms and may contribute to understanding resilience.