| 1. |
- Salvatore, Jessica E., et al.
(author)
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Disentangling Social-Genetic From Rearing-Environment Effects for Alcohol Use Disorder Using Swedish National Data
- 2020
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In: Psychological Science. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-7976 .- 1467-9280. ; 31:9, s. 1140-1149
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Investigations of social-genetic effects, whereby a social partner’s genotype affects another’s outcomes, can be confounded by the influence of the social partner’s rearing environment. We used marital information on more than 300,000 couples from Swedish national data to disentangle social-genetic from rearing-environment effects for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Using observational and extended-family designs, we found that (a) marriage to a spouse with a predisposition toward AUD (as indexed by a parental history of AUD) increased risk for developing AUD; (b) this increased risk was not explained by socioeconomic status, the spouse’s AUD status, or contact with the spouse’s parents; and (c) this increased risk reflected the psychological consequences of the spouse having grown up with an AUD-affected parent (i.e., a rearing-environment effect) rather than a social-genetic effect. Findings illustrate that a spouse’s rearing-environment exposures may confer risk for AUD.
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| 2. |
- Galazka, Martyna A, 1984, et al.
(author)
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Pupillary Contagion in Autism.
- 2019
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In: Psychological science. - : SAGE Publications. - 1467-9280 .- 0956-7976. ; 30:2, s. 309-315
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Pupillary contagion is an involuntary change in the observer's pupil size in response to the pupil size of another person. This effect, presumed to be an important adaption for individuals living in groups, has been documented in both typical infants and adults. Here, for the first time, we report pupillary contagion in individuals with autism, a disorder of social communication. We found that, compared with a typical group ( n = 63), individuals with autism ( n = 54) exhibited comparable pupillary contagion when observing pictures of emotional faces, despite less spontaneous attention toward the eye region. Furthermore, the magnitude of the pupillary response in the autism group was negatively correlated with time spent fixating the eye region. The results suggest that even with less looking toward the eyes, individuals with autism respond to the affective and arousal levels transmitted from other individuals. These results are discussed in the context of an overarousal account of socioaffective-processing differences in autism.
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| 3. |
- James, Ella L., et al.
(author)
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Computer Game Play Reduces Intrusive Memories of Experimental Trauma via Reconsolidation-Update Mechanisms
- 2015
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In: Psychological Science. - : SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC. - 0956-7976 .- 1467-9280. ; 26:8, s. 1201-1215
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Memory of a traumatic event becomes consolidated within hours. Intrusive memories can then flash back repeatedly into the mind's eye and cause distress. We investigated whether reconsolidation-the process during which memories become malleable when recalled-can be blocked using a cognitive task and whether such an approach can reduce these unbidden intrusions. We predicted that reconsolidation of a reactivated visual memory of experimental trauma could be disrupted by engaging in a visuospatial task that would compete for visual working memory resources. We showed that intrusive memories were virtually abolished by playing the computer game Tetris following a memory-reactivation task 24 hr after initial exposure to experimental trauma. Furthermore, both memory reactivation and playing Tetris were required to reduce subsequent intrusions (Experiment 2), consistent with reconsolidation-update mechanisms. A simple, noninvasive cognitive-task procedure administered after emotional memory has already consolidated (i.e., > 24 hours after exposure to experimental trauma) may prevent the recurrence of intrusive memories of those emotional events.
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| 4. |
- Nilsson, Jonna, et al.
(author)
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Direct-Current Stimulation Does Little to Improve the Outcome of Working Memory Training in Older Adults
- 2017
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In: Psychological Science. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-7976 .- 1467-9280. ; 28:7, s. 907-920
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The promise of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) as a modulator of cognition has appealed to researchers, media, and the general public. Researchers have suggested that tDCS may increase effects of cognitive training. In this study of 123 older adults, we examined the interactive effects of 20 sessions of anodal tDCS over the left prefrontal cortex (vs. sham tDCS) and simultaneous working memory training (vs. control training) on change in cognitive abilities. Stimulation did not modulate gains from pre- to posttest on latent factors of either trained or untrained tasks in a statistically significant manner. A supporting meta-analysis (n = 266), including younger as well as older individuals, showed that, when combined with training, tDCS was not much more effective than sham tDCS at changing working memory performance (g = 0.07, 95% confidence interval, or CI = [-0.21, 0.34]) and global cognition performance (g = -0.01, 95% CI = [-0.29, 0.26]) assessed in the absence of stimulation. These results question the general usefulness of current tDCS protocols for enhancing the effects of cognitive training on cognitive ability.
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| 5. |
- Olsson, Mats J., et al.
(author)
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The Scent of Disease : Human Body Odor Contains an Early Chemosensory Cue of Sickness
- 2014
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In: Psychological Science. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-7976 .- 1467-9280. ; 25:3, s. 817-823
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Observational studies have suggested that with time, some diseases result in a characteristic odor emanating from different sources on the body of a sick individual. Evolutionarily, however, it would be more advantageous if the innate immune response were detectable by healthy individuals as a first line of defense against infection by various pathogens, to optimize avoidance of contagion. We activated the innate immune system in healthy individuals by injecting them with endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide). Within just a few hours, endotoxin-exposed individuals had a more aversive body odor relative to when they were exposed to a placebo. Moreover, this effect was statistically mediated by the individuals' level of immune activation. This chemosensory detection of the early innate immune response in humans represents the first experimental evidence that disease smells and supports the notion of a "behavioral immune response" that protects healthy individuals from sick ones by altering patterns of interpersonal contact.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Rietveld, CA, et al.
(author)
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Replicability and robustness of genome-wide-association studies for behavioral traits
- 2014
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In: Psychological science. - : SAGE Publications. - 1467-9280 .- 0956-7976. ; 25:11, s. 1975-1986
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A recent genome-wide-association study of educational attainment identified three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) whose associations, despite their small effect sizes (each R2 ≈ 0.02%), reached genome-wide significance ( p < 5 × 10−8) in a large discovery sample and were replicated in an independent sample ( p < .05). The study also reported associations between educational attainment and indices of SNPs called “polygenic scores.” In three studies, we evaluated the robustness of these findings. Study 1 showed that the associations with all three SNPs were replicated in another large ( N = 34,428) independent sample. We also found that the scores remained predictive ( R2 ≈ 2%) in regressions with stringent controls for stratification (Study 2) and in new within-family analyses (Study 3). Our results show that large and therefore well-powered genome-wide-association studies can identify replicable genetic associations with behavioral traits. The small effect sizes of individual SNPs are likely to be a major contributing factor explaining the striking contrast between our results and the disappointing replication record of most candidate-gene studies.
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| 8. |
- Salvatore, Jessica E., et al.
(author)
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Genetics, the Rearing Environment, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce : A Swedish National Adoption Study
- 2018
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In: Psychological Science. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-7976 .- 1467-9280. ; 29:3, s. 370-378
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We used classical and extended adoption designs in Swedish registries to disentangle genetic and rearing-environment influences on the intergenerational transmission of divorce. In classical adoption analyses, adoptees (n = 19,715) resembled their biological parents, rather than their adoptive parents, in their history of divorce. In extended adoption analyses, offspring (n = 82,698) resembled their not-lived-with fathers and their lived-with mothers. There was stronger resemblance to lived-with mothers, providing indirect evidence of rearing-environment influences on the intergenerational transmission of divorce. The heritability of divorce assessed across generations was 0.13. We attempted to replicate our findings using within-generation data from adoptive and biological siblings (ns = 8,523–53,097). Adoptees resembled their biological, not adoptive, siblings in their history of divorce. Thus, there was consistent evidence that genetic factors contributed to the intergenerational transmission of divorce but weaker evidence for a rearing-environment effect of divorce. Within-generation data from siblings supported these conclusions.
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