@article {194, title = {Genetic and environmental influences on conduct and antisocial personality problems in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood}, journal = {European Child {\&} Adolescent Psychiatry}, year = {2017}, month = {Jun}, abstract = {

Conduct problems in children and adolescents can predict antisocial personality disorder and related problems, such as crime and conviction. We sought an explanation for such predictions by performing a genetic longitudinal analysis. We estimated the effects of genetic, shared environmental, and unique environmental factors on variation in conduct problems measured at childhood and adolescence and antisocial personality problems measured at adulthood and on the covariation across ages. We also tested whether these estimates differed by sex. Longitudinal data were collected in the Netherlands Twin Register over a period of 27\ years. Age appropriate and comparable measures of conduct and antisocial personality problems, assessed with the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, were available for 9783 9\–10-year-old, 6839 13\–18-year-old, and 7909 19\–65-year-old twin pairs, respectively; 5114 twins have two or more assessments. At all ages, men scored higher than women. There were no sex differences in the estimates of the genetic and environmental influences. During childhood, genetic and environmental factors shared by children in families explained 43 and 44{\%} of the variance of conduct problems, with the remaining variance due to unique environment. During adolescence and adulthood, genetic and unique environmental factors equally explained the variation. Longitudinal correlations across age varied between 0.20 and 0.38 and were mainly due to stable genetic factors. We conclude that shared environment is mainly of importance during childhood, while genetic factors contribute to variation in conduct and antisocial personality problems at all ages, and also underlie its stability over age.

}, issn = {1435-165X}, doi = {10.1007/s00787-017-1014-y}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-017-1014-y}, author = {Laura W. Wesseldijk and Meike Bartels and Vink, Jacqueline M. and Catharina E. M. van Beijsterveldt and Lannie Ligthart and Dorret I. Boomsma and Christel Middeldorp} } @article {193, title = {Heritability of Behavioral Problems in 7-Year Olds Based on Shared and Unique Aspects of Parental Views}, journal = {Behavior Genetics}, volume = {47}, year = {2017}, month = {Mar}, pages = {152{\textendash}163}, abstract = {

In studies of child psychopathology, phenotypes of interest are often obtained by parental ratings. When behavioral ratings are obtained in the context of a twin study, this allows for the decomposition of the phenotypic variance, into a genetic and a non-genetic part. If a phenotype is assessed by a single rater, heritability is based on the child\&$\#$39;s behavior as expressed in the presence of that particular rater, whereas heritability based on assessments by multiple raters allows for the estimation of the heritability of the phenotype based on rater agreement, as well as the heritability of the rater specific view of the behavior. The aim of this twin study was to quantify the rater\ common and rater specific contributions to the variation in children\&$\#$39;s behavioral problems. We estimated the heritability of maternal and paternal ratings of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) 6\–18 empirical emotional and behavioral problem scales in a large sample of 12,310 7-year old Dutch twin pairs. Between 30 and 59{\%} of variation in the part of the phenotype parents agree upon was explained by genetic effects. Common environmental effects that make children in the same family similar explained less variance, ranging between 0 and 32{\%}. For unique views of their children\&$\#$39;s behavioral problems, heritability ranged between 0 and 20{\%} for maternal and between 0 and 22{\%} for paternal views. Between 7 and 24{\%} of the variance was accounted for by common environmental factors specific to mother and father\&$\#$39;s views. The proportion of rater shared and rater specific heritability can be translated into genetic correlations between parental views and inform the design and interpretation of results of molecular genetic studies. Genetic correlations were nearly or above 0.7 for all CBCL based psychopathology scales. Such large genetic correlations suggest two practical guidelines for genome-wide association studies (GWAS): when studies have collected data from either fathers or mothers, the shared genetic aetiology in parental ratings indicates that is possible to analyze paternal and maternal assessments in a single GWAS or meta-analysis. Secondly, if a study has collected information from both parents, a gain in statistical power may be realized in GWAS by the simultaneous analysis of the data.

}, issn = {1573-3297}, doi = {10.1007/s10519-016-9823-1}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-016-9823-1}, author = {Fedko, Iryna O. and Laura W. Wesseldijk and Michel G. Nivard and Hottenga, Jouke-Jan and Catharina E. M. van Beijsterveldt and Christel Middeldorp and Meike Bartels and Dorret I. Boomsma} } @article {258, title = {Spousal resemblance in psychopathology: A comparison of parents of children with and without psychopathology}, journal = {European PsychiatryEuropean Psychiatry}, volume = {34}, year = {2016}, month = {2016/04/01}, pages = {49 - 55}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND:

Spouses resemble each other for psychopathology, but data regarding spousal resemblance in externalizing psychopathology, and data regarding spousal resemblance across different syndromes (e.g. anxiety in wives and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] in husbands) are limited. Moreover, knowledge is lacking regarding spousal resemblance in parents of children with psychiatric disorders. We investigated and compared spousal resemblance within and across internalizing and externalizing symptom domains in parents of children with and without psychopathology.

METHODS:

Symptoms of depression, anxiety, avoidant personality, ADHD, and antisocial personality were assessed with the Adult Self Report in 728 mothers and 544 fathers of 778 children seen in child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics and in 2075 mothers and 1623 fathers of 2784 children from a population-based sample. Differences in symptom scores and spousal correlations between the samples were tested.

RESULTS:

Parents in the clinical sample had higher symptom scores than in the population-based sample. In both samples, correlations within and across internalizing and externalizing domains of psychopathology were significant. Importantly, correlations were significantly higher in the clinical sample (P=0.03). Correlations, within and across symptoms, ranged from 0.14 to 0.30 in the clinical sample and from 0.05 to 0.23 in the population-based sample.

CONCLUSIONS:

This large study shows that spousal resemblance is not only present within but also across symptom domains. Especially in the clinical sample, ADHD symptoms in fathers and antisocial personality symptoms in mothers were correlated with a range of psychiatric symptoms in their spouses. Clinicians need to be alert of these multiple affected families.

}, isbn = {0924-9338}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.2423}, author = {Laura W. Wesseldijk and Dieleman, G.C. and Lindauer, R.J.L. and Meike Bartels and Gonneke Willemsen and J.J. Hudziak and Dorret I. Boomsma and Christel Middeldorp} }