Healthy individuals with depressed first-degree relatives show a moderately elevated cortisol response following challenge with dexamethasone (DEX-CRH test), though not as elevated as that of patients with MDD (Holsboer et al., 1995), and healthy individuals with diagnosed parental history of anxiety or depression show higher cortisol awakening levels than individuals without parental history (Vreeburg et al., 2010). Here, CRH is linked to major depressive disorder.