Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T00:39:01.620Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A developmental twin study of symptoms of anxiety and depression: evidence for genetic innovation and attenuation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2008

K. S. Kendler ,
C. O. Gardner  and
P. Lichtenstein
K. S. Kendler*
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
C. O. Gardner
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
P. Lichtenstein
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
*
*Address for correspondence: K. S. Kendler, M.D., Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Little is known about the pattern of genetic and environmental influences on symptoms of anxiety and depression (SxAnxDep) from childhood to early adulthood.

Method

Parental- and self-reported levels of SxAnxDep were assessed at ages 8–9, 13–14, 16–17 and 19–20 years in 2508 twins from the Swedish Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development (TCHAD). Analysis conducted using the Mx program included SxAnxDep by parental and self-report.

Results

The best-fit model revealed one genetic risk factor for SxAnxDep acting at ages 8–9, 13–14, 16–17 and 19–20, and new sets of genetic risk factors ‘coming on line’ in early adolescence, late adolescence and early adulthood. Together, these genetic factors were very strong influences on the levels of SxAnxDep reported in common by parents and twins with heritability estimates, correcting for rater- and time-specific effects, ranging from 72% to 89%. The first genetic factor, which accounted for 72% of the variance in SxAnxDep at ages 8–9, attenuated sharply in influence, accounting for only 12% of the variance by ages 19–20. No evidence was found for shared environmental influences. Although not statistically significant, the correlation between genetic risk factors for SxAnxDep in males and females declined with advancing age.

Conclusions

Genetic effects on SxAnxDep are developmentally dynamic from middle childhood to young adulthood, demonstrating both genetic innovation and genetic attenuation. The attenuation might explain the low levels of continuity observed for anxiety and depressive disorders from childhood to adulthood. Differences in genetic risk factors for SxAnxDep in males and females may increase during development.

Keywords

Anxietydepressiondevelopmentgenetic effectstwins
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 38 , Issue 11 , November 2008 , pp. 1567 - 1575
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achenbach, TM (1991 a). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4–18 and 1991 Profile. University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry: Burlington, VT.Google Scholar
Achenbach, TM (1991 b). Manual for the Youth Self-Report and 1991 Profile. University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry: Burlington, VT.Google Scholar
Achenbach, TM, Rescorla, LA (2003). Manual for the ASEBA Adult Forms and Profiles. University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth and Families: Burlington, VT.Google Scholar
Akaike, H (1987). Factor analysis and AIC. Psychometrika 52, 317–332.Google Scholar
Angold, A, Costello, EJ (2006). Puberty and depression. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 15, 919–937.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Angold, A, Costello, EJ, Erkanli, A, Worthman, CM (1999). Pubertal changes in hormone levels and depression in girls. Psychological Medicine 29, 1043–1053.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Angold, A, Costello, EJ, Worthman, CM (1998). Puberty and depression: the roles of age, pubertal status and pubertal timing. Psychological Medicine 28, 51–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boomsma, DI, van Beijsterveldt, CE, Hudziak, JJ (2005). Genetic and environmental influences on Anxious/Depression during childhood: a study from the Netherlands Twin Register. Genes, Brain and Behavior 4, 466–481.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costello, EJ, Egger, HL, Angold, A (2005). The developmental epidemiology of anxiety disorders: phenomenology, prevalence, and comorbidity. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 14, 631–648.Google ScholarPubMed
Edelbrock, C, Rende, R, Plomin, R, Thompson, LA (1995). A twin study of competence and problem behavior in childhood and early adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 36, 775–785.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eley, TC, Stevenson, J (1999). Exploring the covariation between anxiety and depression symptoms: a genetic analysis of the effects of age and sex. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 40, 1273–1282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Gardner, CO, Annas, P, Neale, MC, Eaves, LJ, Lichtenstein, P (2008). A longitudinal twin study of fears from middle childhood to early adulthood: evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome. Archives of General Psychiatry 65, 421–429.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Gardner, CO, Neale, MC, Prescott, CA (2001). Genetic risk factors for major depression in men and women: similar or different heritabilities and same or partly distinct genes? Psychological Medicine 31, 605–616.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Gatz, M, Gardner, C, Pedersen, N (2006). A Swedish national twin study of lifetime major depression. American Journal of Psychiatry 163, 109–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Heath, A, Martin, NG, Eaves, LJ (1986). Symptoms of anxiety and depression in a volunteer twin population. The etiologic role of genetic and environmental factors. Archives of General Psychiatry 43, 213–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killgore, WD, Oki, M, Yurgelun-Todd, DA (2001). Sex-specific developmental changes in amygdala responses to affective faces. Neuroreport 12, 427–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koshibu, K, Levitt, P (2008). Gene×environment effects: stress and memory dysfunctions caused by stress and gonadal factor irregularities during puberty in control and TGF-alpha hypomorphic mice. Neuropsychopharmacology 33, 557–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasky-Su, J, Lyon, HN, Emilsson, V, Heid, IM, Molony, C, Raby, BA, Lazarus, R, Klanderman, B, Soto-Quiros, ME, Avila, L, Silverman, EK, Thorleifsson, G, Thorsteinsdottir, U, Kronenberg, F, Vollmert, C, Illig, T, Fox, CS, Levy, D, Laird, N, Ding, X, McQueen, MB, Butler, J, Ardlie, K, Papoutsakis, C, Dedoussis, G, O'Donnell, CJ, Wichmann, HE, Celedon, JC, Schadt, E, Hirschhorn, J, Weiss, ST, Stefansson, K, Lange, C (2008). On the replication of genetic associations: timing can be everything! American Journal of Human Genetics 82, 849–858.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Last, CG, Perrin, S, Hersen, M, Kazdin, AE (1996). A prospective study of childhood anxiety disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 35, 1502–1510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lichtenstein, P, Tuvblad, C, Larsson, H, Carlstrom, E (2007). The Swedish Twin study of CHild and Adolescent Development: the TCHAD study. Twin Research and Human Genetics 10, 67–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mackinnon, AJ, Henderson, AS, Andrews, G (1990). Genetic and environmental determinants of the lability of trait neuroticism and the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Psychological Medicine 20, 581–590.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markon, KE, Krueger, RF (2004). An empirical comparison of information-theoretic selection criteria for multivariate behavior genetic models. Behavioral Genetics 34, 593–610.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muthen, LK, Muthen, BO (2004). Mplus User's Guide. Muthen & Muthen: Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Neale, MC, Boker, SM, Xie, G, Maes, HH (2003). Mx: Statistical Modeling. Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School: , Richmond, VA 23298.Google Scholar
Neale, MC, Roysamb, E, Jacobson, K (2006). Multivariate genetic analysis of sex limitation and G×E interaction. Twin Research and Human Genetics 9, 481–489.Google Scholar
O'Connor, TG, Neiderhiser, JM, Reiss, D, Hetherington, EM, Plomin, R (1998). Genetic contributions to continuity, change, and co-occurrence of antisocial and depressive symptoms in adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 39, 323–336.Google ScholarPubMed
Ost, LG, Treffers, PDA (2001). Onset, course, and outcome for anxiety disorders in children. In Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Research, Assessment and Intervention (ed. Silverman, W. K. and Treffers, P. D. A.), pp. 293–312. Cambridge University Press: NY, New York.Google Scholar
Prescott, CA, Gottesman, I (1993). Power limitations in detecting heterogeneity of genetic effects: the case of sex differences in alcoholism. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on Psychopathology, Chicago, October 1993.Google Scholar
Rice, F, Harold, GT, Thapar, A (2002). Assessing the effects of age, sex and shared environment on the genetic aetiology of depression in childhood and adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 43, 1039–1051.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwarz, G (1978). Estimating the dimension of a model. Annual Statistics 6, 461–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scourfield, J, Rice, F, Thapar, A, Harold, GT, Martin, N, McGuffin, P (2003). Depressive symptoms in children and adolescents: changing aetiological influences with development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 44, 968–976.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silberg, JL, Rutter, M, Eaves, L (2001). Genetic and environmental influences on the temporal association between earlier anxiety and later depression in girls. Biological Psychiatry 49, 1040–1049.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steiner, M, Dunn, E, Born, L (2003). Hormones and mood: from menarche to menopause and beyond. Journal of Affective Disorders 74, 67–83.Google ScholarPubMed
Thapar, A, McGuffin, P (1994). A twin study of depressive symptoms in childhood. British Journal of Psychiatry 165, 259–265.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Topolski, TD, Hewitt, JK, Eaves, LJ, Silberg, JL, Meyer, JM, Rutter, M, Pickles, A, Simonoff, E (1997). Genetic and environmental influences on child reports of manifest anxiety and symptoms of separation anxiety and overanxious disorders: a community-based twin study. Behavioral Genetics 27, 15–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toufexis, DJ, Myers, KM, Davis, M (2006). The effect of gonadal hormones and gender on anxiety and emotional learning. Hormones and Behavior 50, 539–549.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Twenge, JM, Nolen-Hoeksema, S (2002). Age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and birth cohort differences on the children's depression inventory: a meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111, 578–588.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walf, AA, Frye, CA (2006). A review and update of mechanisms of estrogen in the hippocampus and amygdala for anxiety and depression behavior. Neuropsychopharmacology 31, 1097–1111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weissman, MM, Wolk, S, Wickramaratne, P, Goldstein, RB, Adams, P, Greenwald, S, Ryan, ND, Dahl, RE, Steinberg, D (1999). Children with prepubertal-onset major depressive disorder and anxiety grown up. Archives of General Psychiatry 56, 794–801.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, L, Holahan, P (1994). Parsimony-based fit indices for multiple-indicator models: do they work? Structural Equation Modeling 1, 161–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Kendler Supplementary Material

Appendix.doc

Download Kendler Supplementary Material(File)
File 48.1 KB