抑郁的發生發展具有重要的遺傳基礎。隨著細胞分子生物學實驗方法以及分子遺傳技術的進步,與神經可塑性有關的BDNF基因作為抑郁遺傳學研究的候選基因日益受到關注。概觀而言,已有相關研究主要探查了BDNF基因與抑郁的直接關聯,BDNF基因與其他基因對抑郁的交互作用,以及環境因素對BDNF基因與抑郁關系的調節作用。然而,研究結論尚存在分歧甚至相互矛盾。其原因包括研究設計、環境測量指標、抑郁測量方法與研究對象種族背景等方面的差異。未來研究可通過采用多基因–環境設計,考察被試種族、性別和年齡的調節作用,以及探究潛在的作用機制等進一步推進和深化有關BDNF基因與抑郁關系的研究。

It has been well documented that the etiology and development of depression have important genetic underpinnings. With the advancement of experimental methods of cellular and molecular biology and analysis techniques of molecular genetics, there is growing concern about BDNF gene, which relates to neural plasticity and found to be an important candidate gene of depression. Generally, existing studies had mainly explored the direct association between BDNF gene and depression, the interaction between BDNF gene and other genes, as well as the moderating effect of environmental factors on the association between BDNF gene and depression. However, the conclusions have been inconsistent and even contradictory in some cases. This might be due to the differences in research designs, indexes of environment measurement, methods of depression measurement, and participants' ethnic backgrounds of extant studies. Future research should focus on such issues as multiple gene–environment effects on depression, the moderation effect of participants' ethnicity, gender and age on the association between genes and depression, and the neural biological mechanisms underlying depression.