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- Ip, H. F., et al.
(author)
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Genetic association study of childhood aggression across raters, instruments, and age
- 2021
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In: Translational Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2158-3188. ; 11:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Childhood aggressive behavior (AGG) has a substantial heritability of around 50%. Here we present a genome-wide association metaanalysis (GWAMA) of childhood AGG, in which all phenotype measures across childhood ages from multiple assessors were included. We analyzed phenotype assessments for a total of 328 935 observations from 87 485 children aged between 1.5 and 18 years, while accounting for sample overlap. We also meta-analyzed within subsets of the data, i.e., within rater, instrument and age. SNP-heritability for the overall meta-analysis (AGGoverall) was 3.31% (SE= 0.0038). We found no genome-wide significant SNPs for AGG(overall). The gene-based analysis returned three significant genes: ST3GAL3 (P= 1.6E-06), PCDH7 (P= 2.0E-06), and IPO13 (P= 2.5E-06). All three genes have previously been associated with educational traits. Polygenic scores based on our GWAMA significantly predicted aggression in a holdout sample of children (variance explained = 0.44%) and in retrospectively assessed childhood aggression (variance explained = 0.20%). Genetic correlations (rg) among rater-specific assessment of AGG ranged from r(g)= 0.46 between self- and teacher-assessment to r(g)d= 0.81 between mother- and teacher-assessment. We obtained moderate-to-strong rgs with selected phenotypes from multiple domains, but hardly with any of the classical biomarkers thought to be associated with AGG. Significant genetic correlations were observed with most psychiatric and psychological traits (range r(g): 0.19-1.00), except for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Aggression had a negative genetic correlation (r(g)=-0.5) with cognitive traits and age at first birth. Aggression was strongly genetically correlated with smoking phenotypes (range |r(g)| : 0.46-0.60). The genetic correlations between aggression and psychiatric disorders were weaker for teacher-reported AGG than for mother- and self-reported AGG. The current GWAMA of childhood aggression provides a powerful tool to interrogate the rater-specific genetic etiology of AGG.
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| 2. |
- Jami, E. S., et al.
(author)
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Genome-wide Association Meta-analysis of Childhood and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms
- 2022
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In: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0890-8567 .- 1527-5418. ; 61:7, s. 934-945
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective: To investigate the genetic architecture of internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence. Method: In 22 cohorts, multiple univariate genome-wide association studies (GWASs) were performed using repeated assessments of internalizing symptoms, in a total of 64,561 children and adolescents between 3 and 18 years of age. Results were aggregated in meta-analyses that accounted for sample overlap, first using all available data, and then using subsets of measurements grouped by rater, age, and instrument. Results: The meta-analysis of overall internalizing symptoms (INToverall) detected no genome-wide significant hits and showed low single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) heritability (1.66%, 95% CI = 0.84-2.48%, n(effective) = 132,260). Stratified analyses indicated rater-based heterogeneity in genetic effects, with self-reported internalizing symptoms showing the highest heritability (5.63%, 95% CI = 3.08%-8.18%). The contribution of additive genetic effects on internalizing symptoms appeared to be stable over age, with overlapping estimates of SNP heritability from early childhood to adolescence. Genetic correlations were observed with adult anxiety, depression, and the well-being spectrum (vertical bar r(g)vertical bar > 0.70), as well as with insomnia, loneliness, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, and childhood aggression (range vertical bar r(g)vertical bar = 0.42-0.60), whereas there were no robust associations with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or anorexia nervosa. Conclusion: Genetic correlations indicate that childhood and adolescent internalizing symptoms share substantial genetic vulnerabilities with adult internalizing disorders and other childhood psychiatric traits, which could partially explain both the persistence of internalizing symptoms over time and the high comorbidity among childhood psychiatric traits. Reducing phenotypic heterogeneity in childhood samples will be key in paving the way to future GWAS success.
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| 6. |
- Bartels, M., et al.
(author)
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Childhood aggression and the co-occurrence of behavioural and emotional problems: results across ages 3-16years from multiple raters in six cohorts in the EU-ACTION project
- 2018
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In: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1018-8827 .- 1435-165X. ; 27:9, s. 1105-1121
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Childhood aggression and its resulting consequences inflict a huge burden on affected children, their relatives, teachers, peers and society as a whole. Aggression during childhood rarely occurs in isolation and is correlated with other symptoms of childhood psychopathology. In this paper, we aim to describe and improve the understanding of the co-occurrence of aggression with other forms of childhood psychopathology. We focus on the co-occurrence of aggression and other childhood behavioural and emotional problems, including other externalising problems, attention problems and anxiety-depression. The data were brought together within the EU-ACTION (Aggression in Children: unravelling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies) project. We analysed the co-occurrence of aggression and other childhood behavioural and emotional problems as a function of the child's age (ages 3 through 16years), gender, the person rating the behaviour (father, mother or self) and assessment instrument. The data came from six large population-based European cohort studies from the Netherlands (2x), the UK, Finland and Sweden (2x). Multiple assessment instruments, including the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory (MPNI), were used. There was a good representation of boys and girls in each age category, with data for 30,523 3- to 4-year-olds (49.5% boys), 20,958 5- to 6-year-olds (49.6% boys), 18,291 7- to 8-year-olds (49.0% boys), 27,218 9- to 10-year-olds (49.4% boys), 18,543 12- to 13-year-olds (48.9% boys) and 10,088 15- to 16-year-olds (46.6% boys). We replicated the well-established gender differences in average aggression scores at most ages for parental ratings. The gender differences decreased with age and were not present for self-reports. Aggression co-occurred with the majority of other behavioural and social problems, from both externalising and internalising domains. At each age, the co-occurrence was particularly prevalent for aggression and oppositional and ADHD-related problems, with correlations of around 0.5 in general. Aggression also showed substantial associations with anxiety-depression and other internalizing symptoms (correlations around 0.4). Co-occurrence for self-reported problems was somewhat higher than for parental reports, but we found neither rater differences, nor differences across assessment instruments in co-occurrence patterns. There were large similarities in co-occurrence patterns across the different European countries. Finally, co-occurrence was generally stable across age and sex, and if any change was observed, it indicated stronger correlations when children grew older. We present an online tool to visualise these associations as a function of rater, gender, instrument and cohort. In addition, we present a description of the full EU-ACTION projects, its first results and the future perspectives.
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| 7. |
- Jelenkovic, A, et al.
(author)
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Birth size and gestational age in opposite-sex twins as compared to same-sex twins: An individual-based pooled analysis of 21 cohorts
- 2018
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In: Scientific reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 8:1, s. 6300-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is well established that boys are born heavier and longer than girls, but it remains unclear whether birth size in twins is affected by the sex of their co-twin. We conducted an individual-based pooled analysis of 21 twin cohorts in 15 countries derived from the COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins), including 67,850 dizygotic twin individuals. Linear regression analyses showed that boys having a co-twin sister were, on average, 31 g (95% CI 18 to 45) heavier and 0.16 cm (95% CI 0.045 to 0.274) longer than those with a co-twin brother. In girls, birth size was not associated (5 g birth weight; 95% CI −8 to −18 and −0.089 cm birth length; 95% CI −0.202 to 0.025) with the sex of the co-twin. Gestational age was slightly shorter in boy-boy pairs than in boy-girl and girl-girl pairs. When birth size was standardized by gestational age, the magnitude of the associations was attenuated in boys, particularly for birth weight. In conclusion, boys with a co-twin sister are heavier and longer at birth than those with a co-twin brother. However, these differences are modest and partly explained by a longer gestation in the presence of a co-twin sister.
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| 8. |
- Vuoksimaa, E., et al.
(author)
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Higher aggression is related to poorer academic performance in compulsory education
- 2021
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In: Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. - : Wiley. - 0021-9630 .- 1469-7610. ; 62:3, s. 327-338
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background To conduct a comprehensive assessment of the association between aggression and academic performance in compulsory education. Method We studied aggression and academic performance in over 27,000 individuals from four European twin cohorts participating in the ACTION consortium (Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies). Individual level data on aggression at ages 7-16 were assessed by three instruments (Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) including parental, teacher and self-reports. Academic performance was measured with teacher-rated grade point averages (ages 12-14) or standardized test scores (ages 12-16). Random effect meta-analytical correlations with academic performance were estimated for parental ratings (in all four cohorts) and self-ratings (in three cohorts). Results All between-family analyses indicated significant negative aggression-academic performance associations with correlations ranging from -.06 to -.33. Results were similar across different ages, instruments and raters and either with teacher-rated grade point averages or standardized test scores as measures of academic performance. Meta-analytical r's were -.20 and -.23 for parental and self-ratings, respectively. In within-family analyses of all twin pairs, the negative aggression-academic performance associations were statistically significant in 14 out of 17 analyses (r = -.17 for parental- and r = -.16 for self-ratings). Separate analyses in monozygotic (r = -.07 for parental and self-ratings), same-sex dizygotic (r's = -.16 and -.17 for parental and self-ratings) and opposite-sex dizygotic (r's = -.21 and -.19 for parental and self-ratings) twin pairs suggested partial confounding by genetic effects. Conclusions There is a robust negative association between aggression and academic performance in compulsory education. Part of these associations were explained by shared genetic effects, but some evidence of a negative association between aggression and academic performance remained even in within-family analyses of monozygotic twin pairs.
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