Behavior Genetics

Polygenic scores (PGS) are increasingly being used for prediction of social and behavioral traits, but suffer from many methodological, theoretical, and ethical concerns that profoundly limit their value. Primarily, these scores are derived from statistical correlations, carrying no inherent biological meaning, and thus may capture indirect effects. Further, the performance of these scores depends upon the diversity of the reference populations and the genomic panels from which they were derived, which consistently underrepresent minoritized populations, leading to poor fit when applied to diverse groups...

This study examined the independent and interactive effects of alcohol use disorder genome-wide polygenic scores (AUD-PGS) and parenting and family conflict on early adolescent externalizing behaviors. Data were drawn from White (N = 6181, 46.9% female), Black/African American (N = 1784, 50.1% female), and Hispanic/Latinx (N = 2410, 48.0% female) youth from the adolescent brain cognitive development Study (ABCD). Parents reported on youth externalizing behaviors at baseline (T1, age 9/10), 1-year (T2, age 10/11) and 2-year (T3, age 11/12) assessments...

The recent interest in increasing diversity in genetic research can be useful in uncovering novel insights into the genetic architecture of mental health disorders - globally and in previously unexplored settings such as low- and middle-income settings like Nigeria. Genetic research into mental health is potentially promising in Nigeria and we reflect on the challenges and opportunities for twin research which may be particularly suited to Nigeria. The higher rates of twinning in Africa and Nigeria specifically, make the twin design an affordable and readily maintainable approach for genetic research in the country...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Proprietary genetic datasets are valuable for boosting the statistical power of genome-wide association studies (GWASs), but their use can restrict investigators from publicly sharing the resulting summary statistics. Although researchers can resort to sharing down-sampled versions that exclude restricted data, down-sampling reduces power and might change the genetic etiology of the phenotype being studied. These problems are further complicated when using multivariate GWAS methods, such as genomic structural equation modeling (Genomic SEM), that model genetic correlations across multiple traits...

Family cultural values that emphasize support, loyalty, and obligation to the family are associated with lower psychopathology in Hispanic/Latino/a youth, but there is a need to understand the implications of family cultural values for youth development in racially/ethnically heterogeneous samples. This study examined phenotypic associations between parent- and youth-reported family cultural values in late childhood on youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms in early adolescence, and whether family cultural values moderated genetic and environmental influences on psychopathology symptoms...

Parenting behaviors are among the most robust predictors of youth resilience to adversity. Critically, however, very few studies examining these effects have been genetically-informed, and none have considered parenting as an etiologic moderator of resilience. What's more, despite the multidimensionality of resilience, extant etiologic literature has largely focused on a single domain. The current study sought to fill these respective gaps in the literature by examining whether and how parental nurturance shapes the etiology of academic, social, and psychological resilience, respectively...

Owing to high rates of prenatal complications, twins are, on average, substantially smaller than population norms on physical measurements including height, weight, and head circumference at birth. By early childhood, twins are physically average. This study is the first to explore the process of catch-up growth by fitting asymptotic growth models to age-standardized height, weight, and head circumference measurements in a community sample of twins (n = 1281, 52.3% female) followed at up to 17 time points from birth to 15 years...

Extremist far-right ideologies, including scientifically inaccurate beliefs about race, are on the rise (Mieriņa and Koroļeva 2015; Youngblood 2020); individuals perpetuating such ideologies occasionally cite genetics research, including behavioral genetics research. This highlights the need for behavioral geneticists to actively confront extremist ideology and promote anti-racism. We emphasize the need for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committees within behavioral genetics institutions...

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Partners resemble each other in health behaviors and outcomes such as alcohol use, smoking, physical activity, and obesity. While this is consistent with social contagion theory suggesting partner influence, it is notoriously difficult to establish causality because of assortative mating and contextual confounding. We offer a novel approach to studying social contagion in health in long-term partnerships by combining genetic data of both partners in married/cohabiting couples with longitudinal data on their health behaviors and outcomes...

The Scarr-Rowe hypothesis proposes that the heritability of intelligence is higher in more advantaged socioeconomic contexts. An early demonstration of this hypothesis was Rowe and colleagues (Rowe et al., Child Dev 70:1151-1162, 1999), where an interaction between the heritability of verbal intelligence and parental education was identified in adolescent siblings in Wave I of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The present study repeated their original analysis at Wave I using contemporary methods, replicated the finding during young adulthood at Wave III, and analyzed the interaction longitudinally utilizing multiple measurements...

Previous research links risky sexual behavior (RSB) to externalizing problems and to substance use, but little research has been conducted on relationships between internalizing problems (INT) and RSB. The current study addresses that literature gap, using both a twin sample from Colorado (N = 2567) and a second twin sample from Minnesota (N = 1131) in attempt to replicate initial results. We explored the hypothesis that the latent variable INT would be more strongly associated with the latent variable RSB for females than for males, examining relationships between INT and RSB via phenotypic confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate twin analyses...

Using baseline (ages 9-10) and two-year follow-up (ages 11-12) data from monozygotic and dizygotic twins enrolled in the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study, we investigated the genetic and environmental contributions to microstructure and volume of nine subcortical gray matter regions. Microstructure was assessed using diffusion MRI data analyzed using restriction spectrum imaging (RSI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) models. The highest heritability estimates (estimate [95% confidence interval]) for microstructure were found using the RSI model in the pallidum (baseline: 0...

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The data release of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development® (ABCD) Study represents an extensive resource for investigating factors relating to child development and mental wellbeing. The genotype data of ABCD has been used extensively in the context of genetic analysis, including genome-wide association studies and polygenic score predictions. However, there are unique opportunities provided by ABCD genetic data that have not yet been fully tapped. The diverse genomic variability, the enriched relatedness among ABCD subsets, and the longitudinal design of the ABCD challenge researchers to perform novel analyses to gain deeper insight into human brain development...

Genetic risk for Late Onset Alzheimer Disease (AD) has been associated with lower cognition and smaller hippocampal volume in healthy young adults. However, whether these and other associations are present during childhood remains unclear. Using data from 5556 genomically-confirmed European ancestry youth who completed the baseline session of the ongoing the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study (ABCD Study®), our phenome-wide association study estimating associations between four indices of genetic risk for late-onset AD (i...