The IBIMA researcher participated in the Symposium ‘Anxiety and Depression in adolescents: new data and implications for clinical practice’ and explained the role of epigenetics in the evaluation of the symptoms of these two emotional problems in young people.
22/11/2022.- The researcher of the Institute of Biomedical Research of Malaga (IBIMA), María Jesús Pinto, has participated in the eighth edition of the International Congress of Clinical and Health Psychology in children and adolescents, organized by the AITANA research group of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH).
Mª Jesús Pinto presented the paper ‘Possible epigenetic marker for the evaluation of anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents’, in which she developed the research work carried out in the DAREMOS initiative, in collaboration with the University of Jaén.
Specifically, he explained how epigenetics studies heritable genetic modifications that do not alter the primary structure of DNA, but do alter its function. One of these is DNA methylation.
The results of the DAREMOS project indicate that hypomethylation of two specific sites of the BDNT gene increases 40 times the risk of suffering emotional problems in high-risk males, compared with emotionally healthy controls. This data, together with others obtained during the research carried out, allows us to extract the important role of this possible genetic biomarker in the early detection of young people at high risk of developing emotional problems.
DAREMOS is a pioneering worldwide interdisciplinary initiative focused on the early identification of adolescents at high risk of developing emotional problems through the contributions of epigenetics and language analysis. Together with María Jesús Pinto, the research team also included Luis Joaquín García, Lourdes Espinosa, José Antonio Muela and Mª Belén Díez from the University of Jaén, Juan Miguel Gómez from IBIMA, and Arturo Montejo from the UJA spin-off YottaCode.
In turn, institutions and entities such as the Youth Institute (INJUVE) of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, the Spanish Association of Mutual Help against Social Phobia and Anxiety Disorders (AMTAES), the Confederation of Organizations of Psychopedagogy and Guidance of Spain (COPOE), the Youth Council of Spain (CJE) or the Youth group of the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans, Bisexuals, Intersex and more (FELGTBI+) are part of. External Advisory Board of DAREMOS.
Mª Jesús Pinto was part of the speakers at the Symposium ‘Anxiety and Depression in adolescents: new data and implications for clinical practice’, together with leading researchers such as María do Céu Salvador (University of Coimbra), Victoria Soto (UMH), both collaborators of the PROEM Network, and Cláudia P. Pires (University of Coimbra).
The AITANA Congress is a meeting forum, aimed at professionals and students, which this year was attended by 500 experts and professionals from around twenty countries.
The DAREMOS project (1260378) has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge of the Andalusian Regional Government.
