Overcoming Anxiety With Genomics

Dr. Irina Baetu at the University of Adelaide is researching how our brain relates cause and effect. She is focusing on the link between genetic variance and cognitive functions, and how these differences might contribute to psychopathology. Dr. Baetu says, “I have always been fascinated by individual differences in cognitive performance and how these affect our daily lives. What I find even more interesting is that some of these individual differences, and less stable characteristics such as temporary moods, are determined by our neurobiology”.

Now, Dr. Baetu is working on gaining a better understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms that determine specific cognitive functions and emotion regulation. While scientists have made great discoveries in neurobiology, there is still much that is unknown. Irina is working to contribute to understanding the links between neurobiology and cognitive performance, including understanding the role of genetic variation in cognitive phenotypes. 

With a particular interest in ‘fear learning’, Irina notes that while learning allows us to associate neutral cues with subsequent events so that we can anticipate those events in the future and prepare for them, excessive learning can actually lead to cognitive dysfunction. She says, “In particular, excessive fear of stimuli that signal the occurrence of aversive events seems to contribute to vulnerability to anxiety disorders”.

Using AGRF’s Single Nucleotide Polymorphism MassArray service, Irina’s work aims to discover the relationship between genetic variance and specific fear learning mechanisms. This work has clinical implications – if the genetic markers for increased fear learning can be identified, then we can determine whether an individual is at risk of developing anxiety disorders.

Dr Baetu notes that “these genetic markers can also be used to identify people with an anxiety disorder, who are likely to be resistant to traditional behavioural therapies that rely on teaching the patient to extinguish, or ‘unlearn’, their acquired fears, such as cognitive behavioural therapy”.

With her research investigating the relationship between specific cognitive functions and genetic variation, genomics becomes very important. It can help predict important outcomes, such as how susceptible an individual may be to certain disorders. In turn, treatment outcomes may be predicted from these studies. Additionally, information about how variations in specific genes relate to cognitive performance can give us clues about potential neurotransmitter systems that are involved in these functions, and therefore opens up new avenues for future research.

In 2010, Dr. Baetu was awarded the New Investigator Award by the American Psychological Association, Division of Experimental Psychology. She was also awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award by the Australian Research Council in 2014 to carry out research investigating genetic individual differences in learning.