No. An individual’s risk for a syndrome as complex and variable as depression or anxiety is due to a large number of factors, including genetic, environmental, and presumably epigenetic. Also, depression and anxiety are not as heritable as other forms of mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) and indeed most offspring of people with depression or anxiety avoid these syndromes. Our hope and expectation is that by better understanding the many types of disparate factors that combine to cause depression or anxiety, it will be possible to better identify those at risk and intervene to prevent the illness.
