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A longitudinal twin study of fears from middle childhood to early adulthood: evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome.

ABSTRACT: While the nature of common fears changes over development, we do not know whether genetic effects on fear-proneness are developmentally stable or developmentally dynamic.To determine the temporal pattern of genetic and environmental effects on the level of intensity of common fears.Prospective, 4-wave longitudinal twin study. Structural modeling was performed with Mx.General community.Two thousand four hundred ninety twins and their parents from the Swedish Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development.The level of parent- and/or self-reported fears obtained at ages 8 to 9, 13 to 14, 16 to 17, and 19 to 20 years.Thirteen questionnaire items formed 3 distinct fear factors: situational, animal, and blood/injury. For all 3 fears, the best-fit model revealed developmentally dynamic effects and, in particular, evidence for both genetic attenuation and innovation. That is, genetic factors influencing fear intensity at age 8 to 9 years decline substantially in importance over time. Furthermore, new sets of genetic risk factors impacting fear intensity "come on line" in early adolescence, late adolescence, and early adulthood. As the twins aged, the influence of the shared environment declined and unique environment increased. No sex effects were found for situational fears while for animal and blood/injury fears, genetic factors in males and females were correlated but not identical. Shared environmental factors were both more important and more stable for animal fears than for situational or blood/injury fears.Genetic effects on fear are developmentally dynamic from middle childhood to young adulthood. As children age, familial-environmental influences on fears decline in importance.

SUBMITTER: Kendler KS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2743740 | biostudies-other | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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A longitudinal twin study of fears from middle childhood to early adulthood: evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome.

Kendler Kenneth S KS Gardner Charles O CO Annas Peter P Neale Michael C MC Eaves Lindon J LJ Lichtenstein Paul P

Archives of general psychiatry 20080401 4

<h4>Context</h4>While the nature of common fears changes over development, we do not know whether genetic effects on fear-proneness are developmentally stable or developmentally dynamic.<h4>Objective</h4>To determine the temporal pattern of genetic and environmental effects on the level of intensity of common fears.<h4>Design</h4>Prospective, 4-wave longitudinal twin study. Structural modeling was performed with Mx.<h4>Setting</h4>General community.<h4>Participants</h4>Two thousand four hundred ...[more]

PMID: 18391130

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Project description:AIMS:The few available studies on early-onset depression and future earnings offer ambiguous findings, and potential sources of heterogeneity are poorly understood. We examined the differences in adult earnings of males and females with and without a history of depressive disorder in adolescence, with specific focuses on (1) future earnings in clinical subtypes of adolescent depression; (2) the growth and distribution of earnings over time within these subgroups and (3) the mediating role of subsequent depressive episodes occurring in early adulthood. METHODS:Data were drawn from the Uppsala Longitudinal Adolescent Depression Study, a community-based cohort study initiated in Uppsala, Sweden, in the early 1990s. Comprehensive diagnostic assessments were conducted at age 16-17 and in follow-up interviews 15 years later, while consecutive data on earnings for the years 1996 to 2016 (ages 20-40) were drawn from population-based registries. The current study included participants with a history of persistent depressive disorder (PDD) (n = 175), episodic major depressive disorder (MDD) (n = 82), subthreshold depression (n = 64) or no depression (n = 218) in adolescence. The association of adolescent depression with earnings in adulthood was analysed using generalised estimating equations. Estimates were adjusted for major child and adolescent psychiatric comorbidities and parental socioeconomic status. The indirect (mediated) effect of depression in early adulthood (ages 19-30) on earnings in mid-adulthood (31-40) was estimated in mediation analysis. The study followed the 'STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology' (STROBE) guidelines. RESULTS:Earnings across early to middle adulthood were lower for participants with a history of a PDD in adolescence than for their non-depressed peers, with an adjusted ratio of mean earnings of 0.85 (0.77-0.95) for females and 0.76 (0.60-0.95) for males. The differences were consistent over time, and more pronounced in the lower percentiles of the earnings distributions. The association was partially mediated by recurrent depression in early adulthood (48% in total; 61% for females, 29% for males). No reduction in earnings was observed among participants with episodic MDD in adolescence, while results for subthreshold depression were inconclusive. CONCLUSIONS:Our findings suggest that future earnings of adolescents with depressive disorders are contingent on the duration and natural long-term course of early-onset depression, emphasising the need for timely and effective interventions to avoid loss of human capital.

Dataset Information

A longitudinal twin study of fears from middle childhood to early adulthood: evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome.

Publications

A longitudinal twin study of fears from middle childhood to early adulthood: evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome.

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