The largest genetic study of anxiety to date has uncovered 39 previously unknown gene locations linked to anxiety symptoms, shedding new light on the biology behind one of the world’s most common mental health conditions — and why rates keep rising.
Researchers have pinpointed 74 locations in the human genome associated with anxiety symptoms — the most ever identified in a single study — including 39 that had never been linked to the condition before. The findings, published June 9 in Nature Human Behaviour, draw on genetic data from nearly 700,000 people and represent a major leap forward in understanding the biological roots of anxiety.
The genome-wide association study (GWAS) was led by scientists at King’s College London and the QIMR Berghofer medical research institute. Rather than classifying participants simply as having or not having an anxiety disorder, the team measured symptom severity — an approach that captures the full spectrum of anxiety, from ordinary everyday stress to debilitating clinical conditions.
What the Researchers Found
Of the 74 genetic locations identified, roughly half had appeared in earlier anxiety GWAS research. The remaining 39 loci were entirely new discoveries. Many of the genes flagged in the analysis, including PCLO and SORCS3, are highly active in brain tissue and play roles in how neurons communicate with one another.
The study also found that common genetic variation accounts for about 6% of the differences in how severely people experience anxiety symptoms. That leaves a large share of the picture unexplained by genetics alone — pointing to the significant role of environment, personal history and gene-environment interactions.
Lead author Thalia Eley, a professor of developmental behavioural genetics at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, emphasized both the urgency and the gap in current knowledge.
“Despite the public health impact of anxiety, progress in the understanding of its genetics lags behind other major mental health conditions. Given the high and rising rates of anxiety, especially in young adults, it is more important than ever to improve our ability to identify and understand sources of risk,” Eley said in a news release. “We hope our findings encourage a new wave of large-scale analyses to accelerate our progress in understanding the genetic architecture of anxiety.”
Why It Matters for Students and Young Adults
Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental health conditions globally, and rates have been climbing — particularly among college-aged people. For students navigating academic pressure, financial stress and major life transitions, understanding the underlying biology of anxiety is more relevant than ever.
First author Megan Skelton, a research fellow at King’s College London’s IoPPN, stressed that a genetic predisposition is not destiny.
“This is an exciting step forward in understanding how anxiety risk can be influenced by biological processes. It’s important to highlight that genetics interplay with life experiences, social contexts, and psychological factors to shape individual risk. This means that even someone with a high genetic risk might not develop anxiety, while someone with low genetic risk could,” Skelton said in the news release.
“The rise in anxiety rates points to environmental factors, as genetics don’t change much across generations, so reducing anxiety in the population will require these factors to be addressed. At the same time, understanding genetic risk could help us identify people who are more sensitive to environmental influences, ultimately contributing to more effective prevention and treatment strategies.”
The research team also calculated polygenic scores — numerical summaries of each person’s genetic risk based on many variants combined. When tested across separate groups of people with European, African and South Asian ancestry, these scores explained between 1.2% and 2.9% of the variation in anxiety severity. Researchers noted, however, that the current shortage of large datasets combining genetic and anxiety data for people of African or South Asian ancestry limits the ability to build equally powerful models for those populations.
The Anxiety-Physical Health Connection
One of the study’s more striking findings was the broad overlap between the genetics of anxiety and those of various physical health conditions. Significant genetic correlations emerged between anxiety symptoms and conditions including depression, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pain, coronary artery disease, endometriosis and migraine.
Co-first author Brittany Mitchell, the team head of the Complex Trait Genomics group at QIMR Berghofer, urged caution in interpreting those links.
“These correlations highlight the interconnection between mental and physical health. Importantly, while some shared genetic variants may increase risk for both a physical health condition and more severe anxiety symptoms, it’s also true that living with chronic pain or illness can contribute to anxiety symptoms. Our findings don’t reveal causation or the direction of effect, but they do open up important questions for future research,” she said.
Source: King’s College London