Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T19:21:28.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A novel sibling-based design to quantify genetic and shared environmental effects: application to drug abuse, alcohol use disorder and criminal behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

K. S. Kendler ,
H. Ohlsson ,
A. C. Edwards ,
P. Lichtenstein ,
K. Sundquist  and
J. Sundquist
K. S. Kendler*
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
H. Ohlsson
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
A. C. Edwards
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
P. Lichtenstein
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
K. Sundquist
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
J. Sundquist
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: K. S. Kendler, M.D., Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics of VCU, Box 980126, Richmond, VA 23298-0126, USA. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Twin studies have been criticized for upwardly biased estimates that might contribute to the missing heritability problem.

Method

We identified, from the general Swedish population born 1960–1990, informative sibships containing a proband, one reared-together full- or half-sibling and a full-, step- or half-sibling with varying degrees of childhood cohabitation with the proband. Estimates of genetic, shared and individual specific environment for drug abuse (DA), alcohol use disorder (AUD) and criminal behavior (CB), assessed from medical, legal or pharmacy registries, were obtained using Mplus.

Results

Aggregate estimates of additive genetic effects for DA, AUD and CB obtained separately in males and females varied from 0.46 to 0.73 and agreed with those obtained from monozygotic and dizygotic twins from the same population. Of 54 heritability estimates from individual classes of informative sibling trios (3 syndromes × 9 classes of trios × 2 sexes), heritability estimates from the siblings were lower, tied and higher than those from obtained from twins in 26, one and 27 comparisons, respectively. By contrast, of 54 shared environmental estimates, 33 were lower than those found in twins, one tied and 20 were higher.

Conclusions

With adequate information, human populations can provide many methods for estimating genetic and shared environmental effects. For the three externalizing syndromes examined, concerns that heritability estimates from twin studies are upwardly biased or were not generalizable to more typical kinds of siblings were not supported. Overestimation of heritability from twin studies is not a likely explanation for the missing heritability problem.

Keywords

Alcoholismcrimedrug abuseheritabilitysiblings
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 46 , Issue 8 , June 2016 , pp. 1639 - 1650
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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

Allen, M, Donohue, WA, Griffin, A, Ryan, D, Turner, MM (2003). Comparing the influence of parents and peers on the choice to use drugs. Criminal Justice and Behavior 30, 163–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakker, P (1987). Autonomous languages of twins. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae (Roma) 36, 233–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnes, JC, Wright, JP, Boutwell, BB, Schwartz, JA, Connolly, EJ, Nedelec, JL, Beaver, KM (2014). Demonstrating the validity of twin research in criminology. Criminology 52, 588–626.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentler, PM (1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychological Bulletin 107, 238–246.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bryan, E (1992). Twins and Higher Multiple Births: A Guide to their Nature and Nurture. Edward Arnold: London.Google Scholar
Burt, CH, Simons, RL (2014). Pulling back the curtain on heritability studies: biosocial criminology in the postgenomic era. Criminology 52, 223–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, MC, Pernoll, ML (2007). Multiple pregnancy. In Current Diagnosis and Treatment, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 10th edn. (ed. Decherney, AH, Nathan, L, Goodwin, TM and Laufer, N), pp. 301–310. McGraw Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC-CDG) (2013). Genetic relationship between five psychiatric disorders estimated from genome-wide SNPs. Nature Genetics 45, 984–994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisell, T, Pawitan, Y, Långström, N, Lichtenstein, P (2012). Heritability, assortative mating and gender differences in violent crime: results from a total population sample using twin, adoption, and sibling models. Behavior Genetics 42, 3–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golan, D, Lander, ES, Rosset, S (2014). Measuring missing heritability: inferring the contribution of common variants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 111, E5272–E5281.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldman, D (2014). The missing heritability of behavior: the search continues. Psychophysiology 51, 1327–1328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawkins, JD, Herrenkohl, T, Farrington, DP, Brewer, D, Catalano, RF, Harachi, TW (1998). A review of predictors of youth violence. In Serious & Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions (ed. Loeber, R and Farrington, DP), pp. 106–146. Sage Publications, Inc.: London.Google Scholar
Hur, YM, Craig, JM (2013). Twin registries worldwide: an important resource for scientific research. Twin Research and Human Genetics 16, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson, DD (1960). A critique of the literature on the genetics of schizophrenia. In The Etiology of Schizophrenia (ed. Jackson, D. D.), pp. 37–87. Basic Books: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joseph, J (2002). Twin studies in psychiatry and psychology: science or pseudoscience? Psychiatric Quarterly 73, 71–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendler, KS (1983). Overview: a current perspective on twin studies of schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 140, 1413–1425.Google ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Eaves, LJ (2005). Psychiatric Genetics, Review of Psychiatry, vol. 24. American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.: Arlington, VA.Google Scholar
Kendler, KS, Lonn, SL, Maes, HH, Sundquist, J, Sundquist, K (2015 a). The etiologic role of genetic and environmental factors in criminal behavior as determined from full- and half-sibling pairs: an evaluation of the validity of the twin method. Psychological Medicine 45, 1873–1880.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Morris, NA, Lönn, SL, Sundquist, J, Sundquist, K (2014). Environmental transmission of violent criminal behavior in siblings: a Swedish National Study. Psychological Medicine 44, 3181–3187.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Neale, MC, Kessler, RC, Heath, AC, Eaves, LJ (1994). Parental treatment and the equal environment assumption in twin studies of psychiatric illness. Psychological Medicine 24, 579–590.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Ohlsson, H, Mezuk, B, Sundquist, K, Sundquist, J (2015 b). Exposure to peer deviance during childhood and risk for drug abuse: a Swedish national co-relative control study. Psychological Medicine 45, 855–864.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Ohlsson, H, Sundquist, K, Sundquist, J (2013). Within-family environmental transmission of drug abuse: a Swedish national study. JAMA Psychiatry 70, 235–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Prescott, CA (2006). Genes, Environment, and Psychopathology: Understanding the Causes of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders, 1st edn. Guilford Press: New York.Google Scholar
LaBuda, MC, Svikis, DS, Pickens, RW (1997). Twin closeness and co-twin risk for substance use disorders: assessing the impact of the equal environment assumption. Psychiatry Research 70, 155–164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, SH, Wray, NR, Goddard, ME, Visscher, PM (2011). Estimating missing heritability for disease from genome-wide association studies. American Journal of Human Genetics 88, 294–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewontin, RC, Rose, S, Kamin, LJ (1985). Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature. Pantheon: New York.Google Scholar
LoParo, D, Waldman, I (2014). Twins’ rearing environment similarity and childhood externalizing disorders: a test of the equal environments assumption. Behavior Genetics 44, 606–613.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Manolio, TA, Collins, FS, Cox, NJ, Goldstein, DB, Hindorff, LA, Hunter, DJ, McCarthy, MI, Ramos, EM, Cardon, LR, Chakravarti, A, Cho, JH, Guttmacher, AE, Kong, A, Kruglyak, L, Mardis, E, Rotimi, CN, Slatkin, M, Valle, D, Whittemore, AS, Boehnke, M, Clark, AG, Eichler, EE, Gibson, G, Haines, JL, Mackay, TF, McCarroll, SA, Visscher, PM (2009). Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases. Nature 461, 747–753.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGuffin, P, Owen, MJ, O'Donovan, MC, Thapar, A, Gottesman, II (1994). Seminars in Psychiatric Genetics. Gaskell: London.Google Scholar
Muthén, LK, Muthén, BO (2007). Mplus User's Guide, fifth edn. Muthén & Muthén: Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Pam, A, Kemker, SS, Ross, CA, Golden, R (1996). The “equal environments assumption” in MZ–DZ twin comparisons: an untenable premise of psychiatric genetics? Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae (Roma) 45, 349–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petraitis, J, Flay, BR, Miller, TQ, Torpy, EJ, Greiner, B (1998). Illicit substance use among adolescents: a matrix of prospective predictors. Substance Use and Misuse 33, 2561–2604.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutter, M, Redshaw, J (1991). Annotation: growing up as a twin: twin–singleton differences in psychological development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 32, 885–895.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steiger, JH (1990). Structural model evaluation and modification: an interval estimation approach. Multivariate Behavioral Research 25, 173–180.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sullivan, PF, Eaves, LJ (2002). Evaluation of analyses of univariate discrete twin data. Behavior Genetics 32, 221–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tucker, LR, Lewis, C (1973). A reliability coefficient for maximum likelihood factor analysis. Psychometrika 38, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wray, NR, Maier, R (2014). Genetic basis of complex genetic disease: the contribution of disease heterogeneity to missing heritability. Current Epidemiology Report: Genetic Epidemiology 1, 220–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Kendler supplementary material

Kendler supplementary material 1

Download Kendler supplementary material(File)
File 61.4 KB