Predicting Response Trajectories during Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Panic Disorder: No Association with the BDNF Gene or Childhood Maltreatment.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and result in low quality of life and a high social and economic cost. The efficacy of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders is well established, but a substantial proportion of patients do not respond to this treatment. Understa...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Santacana, Marti, Arias Sampériz, Bárbara, Mitjans Niubó, Marina, Bonillo, Albert, Montoro, Maria, Rosado, Silvia, Guillamat, Roser, Vallès, Vicenç, Pérez, Víctor, Forero, Carlos G., Fullana Rivas, Miguel Àngel
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2016
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/112016
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/112016
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Ansietat
Trastorns de pànic
Maltractament infantil
Genètica humana
Polimorfisme genètic
Anxiety
Panic disorders
Child abuse
Human genetics
Genetic polymorphisms
Description
Summary:BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and result in low quality of life and a high social and economic cost. The efficacy of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders is well established, but a substantial proportion of patients do not respond to this treatment. Understanding which genetic and environmental factors are responsible for this differential response to treatment is a key step towards 'personalized medicine'. Based on previous research, our objective was to test whether the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and/or childhood maltreatment are associated with response trajectories during exposure-based CBT for panic disorder (PD). METHOD: We used Growth Mixture Modeling to identify latent classes of change (response trajectories) in patients with PD (N = 97) who underwent group manualized exposure-based CBT. We conducted logistic regression to investigate the effect on these trajectories of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and two different types of childhood maltreatment, abuse and neglect. RESULTS: We identified two response trajectories ('high response' and 'low response'), and found that they were not significantly associated with either the genetic (BDNF Val66Met polymorphism) or childhood trauma-related variables of interest, nor with an interaction between these variables. CONCLUSIONS: We found no evidence to support an effect of the BDNF gene or childhood trauma-related variables on CBT outcome in PD. Future studies in this field may benefit from looking at other genotypes or using different (e.g. whole-genome) approaches.