Search results

AbstractMore boys than girls with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) receive treatment. One explanation for this bias may be that boys score higher on disruptive behavior scales than girls. Although this was supported by findings in clinical samples, recent studies in nonreferred samples showed that boys and girls with ADHD are similar with respect to their levels of disruptive behavior as reported by their mother. In this report, we investigate whether the difference in treatment rate is associated with higher teacher problem scores in boys with ADHD than in girls with ADHD. Data were obtained from mothers and teachers in a nonreferred sample of 283 boys and 291 girls with and without ADHD. Children were selected when they scored either low (controls) or high (probands) on attention problems. Mothers completed DSM-IV interviews, Child Behavior Checklists (CBCL) and the Conners Rating Scale (CRS). Teachers filled in the Teacher Report Form (TRF), and the CRS. Boys and girls with ADHD had similar levels of psychiatric illness and school impairment (such as being held back, special class placement and learning problems) by mother report. Mothers reported similar levels of aggression and attention problems in boys and girls with ADHD. In contrast, teachers consistently rated boys with ADHD as having higher scores on reports of attention problems and aggression than girls with ADHD. Gender differences vary across settings: boys and girls with ADHD are rated as behaving differently at school, but not at home. The higher level of teacher reported problem behavior at school may explain the high male–female ratio for ADHD in clinical settings. These findings have implications for the results of genetic studies that rely on referred samples, as these studies may give a distorted view of sex differences in the population.

AbstractWe study the situation in which a cheap measure (X) is observed in a large, representative twin sample, and a more expensive measure (Y) is observed in a selected subsample. The aim of this study is to investigate the optimal selection design in terms of the statistical power to detect genetic and environmental influences on the variance of Y and on the covariance of X and Y. Data were simulated for 4000 dizygotic and 2000 monozygotic twins. Missingness (87% vs. 97%) was then introduced in accordance with 7 selection designs: (i) concordant low + individual high design; (ii) extreme concordant design; (iii) extreme concordant and discordant design (EDAC); (iv) extreme discordant design; (v) individual score selection design; (vi) selection of an optimal number of MZ and DZ twins; and (vii) missing completely at random. The statistical power to detect the influence of additive and dominant genetic and shared environmental effects on the variance of Y and on the covariance between X and Y was investigated. The best selection design is the individual score selection design. The power to detect additive genetic effects is high irrespective of the percentage of missingness or selection design. The power to detect shared environmental effects is acceptable when the percentage of missingness is 87%, but is low when the percentage of missingness is 97%, except for the individual score selection design, in which the power remains acceptable. The power to detect D is low, irrespective of selection design or percentage of missingness. The individual score selection design is therefore the best design for detecting genetic and environmental influences on the variance of Y and on the covariance of X and Y. However, the EDAC design may be preferred when an additional purpose of a study is to detect quantitative trait loci effects.

Family history interviews are widely used in psychiatric research, as well as in genetic and twin studies, and provide a way to collect family history information quickly and economically. To obtain a valid assessment of family history, it is important to investigate which family member will be able to provide accurate information. Previous research shows that the validity of family history reporting can be influenced by characteristics of the informant, such as age, gender and personal history of psychiatric disorder. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of a subject's position in a pedigree on the validity of data collection. Family history data on diabetes and psychiatric disorders were collected in three generations of 33 families by interviewing both an index subject (3rd generation) and his or her mother (2nd generation). Mothers were shown to report higher rates of diabetes and psychiatric disorder in the family compared to the index subjects. There was no significant difference in the disease rate reported by male and female index subject. Mothers who experienced a depressive episode indicated significantly more family members as having a psychiatric disorder than mothers who never experienced such an episode. This could be explained by the presence of informant bias, but may also result from the fact that depression is a heritable disorder and is therefore actually more prevalent in these families. Our findings suggest that family interview data should be collected by interviewing subjects who have a central position in the pedigree and can therefore provide information on his/her own generation, the previous and the next. In addition, psychiatric status of the informant should be carefully addressed.

AbstractThere is a well-established relationship between cannabis use and psychosis, although the exact nature of this relationship is not fully understood. Recent studies have observed significant genetic overlap between a diagnosis of schizophrenia and lifetime cannabis use. Expanding on this work, the current study aimed to examine whether genetic overlap also occurs for subclinical psychosis (schizotypy) and cannabis use, as well as examining the phenotypic association between the traits. Phenotypic correlations were calculated for a variety of schizotypy and cannabis phenotypes in the UK Biobank (UKB), and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based heritability estimates and genetic correlations were calculated for these UKB phenotypes as well as for several other variables taken from recent genomewide association studies. Positive phenotypic correlations were observed between 11 out of 12 pairs of the cannabis use and schizotypy phenotypes (correlation range .05–.18), indicating a robust association between increased symptoms of schizotypy and cannabis use. SNP-based heritability estimates for two schizotypy phenotypes remained significant after multiple testing correction:social anhedonia(h2SNP= .08,SE= .02,N= 4025) andever seen an unreal vision(h2SNP= .35,SE= .10,N= 150,717). Finally, one significant genetic correlation was observed between schizotypy and cannabis use, a negative correlation betweensocial anhedoniaandnumber of times used cannabis(rg= −.30,p= .012). The current study suggests the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis is also seen in subclinical symptoms of psychosis, but further research with larger samples is needed to determine the biological mechanisms underlying this association.

<b><i>Background:</i></b> The Dutch multi-ethnic Healthy Life in an Urban Setting study recently showed that alcohol consumption was lower in ethnic minority groups than those of Dutch origin, but that binge drinking in drinkers of Turkish and Moroccan origin was relatively high. The aim of the current study is to examine factors that may contribute to the differences in drinking patterns and how they relate to the relationship between drinking patterns and alcohol dependence (AD) across ethnic groups. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The rate of last year alcohol use, alcohol use patterns and AD was assessed in 4,635 Dutch, 4,317 Moroccan, 4,036 Turkish, 2,459 Ghanaian, 4,426 African Surinamese and 3,357 South-Asian Surinamese participants (both men and women) born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Compared to the Dutch, the prevalence of (regular) drinking is substantially lower in all ethnic minority groups and regular drinkers among most ethnic minority groups have a lower adjusted risk to develop binge drinking and AD than the Dutch. For the prevalence of regular drinking, the ethnic differences are bigger than for the prevalence of current drinking. However, regular drinkers of Moroccan origin have a risk similar to the Dutch to develop binge drinking and AD; a finding that could not be explained by group differences in age, sex, religiosity, perceived discrimination, depression or guilt feelings about drinking. <b><i>Discussion:</i></b> The prevalence data show that current drinking is lower and that regular drinking is much lower in ethnic minorities and – with the exception of those of Moroccan origin – ethnic minority regular drinkers also have a significant lower risk to develop binge drinking or AD than regular drinkers of Dutch origin. This implies that the magnitude of problematic alcohol use is substantially smaller in ethnic minorities than in the ethnic Dutch population of Amsterdam. Unfortunately, no explanation was found for the special risk situation of regular drinkers of Moroccan origin.

AbstractThe Netherlands Twin Register (NTR) was established around 1987 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The current article summarizes the longitudinal genetic analyses of maternal and paternal ratings of twins' behavior as a function of the sex of the children for the traits of aggression (AGG), attention problems (AP), anxious/depression (ANX), internalizing behavior (INT) and externalizing behavior (EXT). We found that genetic influences are the most important factor in explaining individual differences in these traits. For most phenotypes, influences of genetic factors fluctuate throughout development, with the exception of AP, for which genetic influences remain of similar magnitude. Changes in genetic influences parallel those in shared environmental influences, while nonshared environmental influences remain relatively constant. Around 10% to 20% of the variance is accounted for by parent-specific shared environment, which includes rater bias. For all phenotypes, stability throughout childhood is accounted for by genetic and shared environmental factors, while nonshared environmental influences are mainly age/measurement specific. About 15% of the phenotypic stability is accounted for by rater-specific shared environmental influences, which include rater bias. In conclusion, between ages 3 and 12 genetic factors are the most important cause of individual differences in emotional and behavioral problems.

According to the World Health Organization, about 2 billion people drink alcohol. Excessive alcohol consumption can result in alcohol addiction, which is one of the most prevalent neuropsychiatric diseases afflicting our society today. Prevention and intervention of alcohol binging in adolescents and treatment of alcoholism are major unmet challenges affecting our health-care system and society alike. Our newly formed German SysMedAlcoholism consortium is using a new systems medicine approach and intends (1) to define individual neurobehavioral risk profiles in adolescents that are predictive of alcohol use disorders later in life and (2) to identify new pharmacological targets and molecules for the treatment of alcoholism. To achieve these goals, we will use omics-information from epigenomics, genetics transcriptomics, neurodynamics, global neurochemical connectomes and neuroimaging (IMAGEN; Schumann etal. ) to feed mathematical prediction modules provided by two Bernstein Centers for Computational Neurosciences (Berlin and Heidelberg/Mannheim), the results of which will subsequently be functionally validated in independent clinical samples and appropriate animal models. This approach will lead to new early intervention strategies and identify innovative molecules for relapse prevention that will be tested in experimental human studies. This research program will ultimately help in consolidating addiction research clusters in Germany that can effectively conduct large clinical trials, implement early intervention strategies and impact political and healthcare decision makers.

The direct estimation of heritability from genome-wide common variant data as implemented in the program Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA) has provided a means to quantify heritability attributable to all interrogated variants. We have quantified the variance in liability to disease explained by all SNPs for two phenotypically-related neurobehavioral disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette Syndrome (TS), using GCTA. Our analysis yielded a heritability point estimate of 0.58 (se = 0.09, p = 5.64e-12) for TS, and 0.37 (se = 0.07, p = 1.5e-07) for OCD. in addition, we conducted multiple genomic partitioning analyses to identify genomic elements that concentrate this heritability. We examined genomic architectures of TS and OCD by chromosome, MAF bin, and functional annotations. in addition, we assessed heritability for early onset and adult onset OCD. Among other notable results, we found that SNPs with a minor allele frequency of less than 5% accounted for 21% of the TS heritability and 0% of the OCD heritability. Additionally, we identified a significant contribution to TS and OCD heritability by variants significantly associated with gene expression in two regions of the brain (parietal cortex and cerebellum) for which we had available expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs). Finally we analyzed the genetic correlation between TS and OCD, revealing a genetic correlation of 0.41 (se = 0.15, p = 0.002). These results are very close to previous heritability estimates for TS and OCD based on twin and family studies, suggesting that very little, if any, heritability is truly missing (i.e., unassayed) from TS and OCD GWAS studies of common variation. the results also indicate that there is some genetic overlap between these two phenotypically-related neuropsychiatric disorders, but suggest that the two disorders have distinct genetic architectures. ; Judah Foundation ; NIH ; Tourette Syndrome Association International Consortium for Genetics (TSAICG) ; New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome and Associated Disorders ; NIMH ; Obsessive Compulsive Foundation ; Ontario Mental Health Foundation ; Tourette Syndrome Association ; American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) ; Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA) ; University of British Columbia ; Michael Smith Foundation ; American Recovery and Re-investment Act (ARRA) ; Australian Research Council ; Australian National Health and Medical Research Council ; German Research Foundation ; NIH Genes, Environment and Health Initiative [GEI] ; Gene Environment Association Studies (GENEVA) under GEI ; NIH GEI ; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ; National Institute on Drug Abuse ; Univ Chicago, Dept Med, Med Genet Sect, Chicago, IL 60637 USA ; Harvard Univ, Massachusetts Gen Hosp, Dept Psychiat,Sch Med, Psychiat & Neurodev Genet Unit,Ctr Human Genet Re, Boston, MA USA ; Broad Inst Harvard & MIT, Stanley Ctr Psychiat Res, Cambridge, MA USA ; Univ Chicago, Dept Med, Chicago, IL 60637 USA ; Univ Chicago, Dept Human Genet, Chicago, IL 60637 USA ; Univ Amsterdam, Acad Med Ctr, Dept Psychiat, NL-1105 AZ Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Massachusetts Gen Hosp, Analyt & Translat Genet Unit, Boston, MA 02114 USA ; Univ Queensland, Diamantina Inst, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia ; Univ Queensland, Queensland Brain Inst, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia ; Univ Hlth Network, Toronto Western Res Inst, Toronto, ON, Canada ; Hosp Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada ; Univ Vita Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy ; Hadassah Hebrew Univ Med Ctr, Herman Dana Div Child & Adolescent Psychiat, Jerusalem, Israel ; Univ Pontificia Bolivariana, Univ Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia ; Johns Hopkins Univ, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat & Behav Sci, Baltimore, MD 21205 USA ; Yale Univ, Dept Psychiat, New Haven, CT 06520 USA ; Yale Univ, Sch Med, Ctr Child Study, New Haven, CT 06510 USA ; North Shore Long Isl Jewish Med Ctr, Manhasset, NY USA ; NYU Med Ctr, New York, NY 10016 USA ; North Shore Long Isl Jewish Hlth Syst, Manhasset, NY USA ; Hofstra Univ, Sch Med, Hempstead, NY 11550 USA ; Inst Nacl Psiquiatria Ramon de la Fuente Muniz, Mexico City, DF, Mexico ; UCL, London, England ; Univ Hong Kong, Dept Psychiat, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peoples R China ; Univ São Paulo, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat, São Paulo, Brazil ; Vrije Univ Amsterdam, Med Ctr, Dept Psychiat, Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Univ Utrecht, Dept Clin & Hlth Psychol, Utrecht, Netherlands ; Altrecht Acad Anxiety Ctr, Utrecht, Netherlands ; Univ Milan, Osped San Raffaele, I-20127 Milan, Italy ; Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Psychol, Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA ; Univ Calif San Diego, Dept Psychiat, La Jolla, CA 92093 USA ; Univ Montreal, Montreal, PQ, Canada ; Univ Calif Los Angeles, Keck Sch Med, Div Biostat, Dept Preventat Med, Los Angeles, CA USA ; Univ Illinois, Dept Psychiat, Inst Juvenile Res, Chicago, IL 60612 USA ; Univ Ghent, Lab Pharmaceut Biotechnol, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium ; Inst Pasteur, Paris, France ; French Natl Sci Fdn, Fondat Fondamental, Creteil, France ; Hop Robert Debre, AP HP, Dept Child & Adolescent Psychiat, F-75019 Paris, France ; Univ Montreal, Dept Psychiat, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7, Canada ; Univ Wurzburg, Dept Child & Adolescent Psychiat Psychosomat & Ps, D-97070 Wurzburg, Germany ; Univ Munich, Dept Psychiat & Psychotherapy, Munich, Germany ; Yale Univ, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat, New Haven, CT USA ; Harvard Univ, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat, Massachusetts Gen Hosp,OCD Program, Boston, MA 02115 USA ; Univ Med Greifswald, Helios Hosp Stralsund, Dept Psychiat & Psychotherapy, Greifswald, Germany ; Butler Hosp, Brown Med Sch, Dept Psychiat & Human Behav, Providence, RI 02906 USA ; Shaare Zedek Med Ctr, Neuropediatr Unit, Jerusalem, Israel ; Rutgers State Univ, Dept Genet, Human Genet Inst New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ USA ; Univ Stellenbosch, Dept Psychiat, ZA-7600 Stellenbosch, South Africa ; Univ São Paulo, Fac Med, Dept Psychiat, BR-05508 São Paulo, Brazil ; Baylor Coll Med, Dept Neurol, Parkinsons Dis Ctr, Houston, TX 77030 USA ; Baylor Coll Med, Dept Neurol, Movement Disorders Clin, Houston, TX 77030 USA ; Massachusetts Gen Hosp, Dept Psychiat, Boston, MA 02114 USA ; Ctr Addict & Mental Hlth, Neurogenet Sect, Toronto, ON, Canada ; Univ Toronto, Dept Psychiat, Toronto, ON, Canada ; Yale Univ, Sch Med, Dept Genet, Yale Child Study Ctr, New Haven, CT 06510 USA ; Overlook Hosp, Atlantic Neurosci Inst, Summit, NJ USA ; Carracci Med Grp, Mexico City, DF, Mexico ; Inst Mondor Rech Biomed, Creteil, France ; Yale Univ, Ctr Child Study, New Haven, CT 06520 USA ; Univ Bonn, Dept Psychiat & Psychotherapy, Bonn, Germany ; Univ Illinois, Dept Psychiat, Inst Human Genet, Chicago, IL 60612 USA ; Univ Stellenbosch, Dept Psychiat, MRC Unit Anxiety & Stress Disorders, ZA-7600 Stellenbosch, South Africa ; Univ Calif San Francisco, Dept Psychiat, San Francisco, CA USA ; UCI, Sch Med, Dept Psychiat & Human Behav, Irvine, CA USA ; Univ Utah, Salt Lake City, UT USA ; NIMH Intramural Res Program, Clin Sci Lab, Bethesda, MD USA ; Med City Dallas Hosp, Dept Clin Res, Dallas, TX USA ; Univ Med Ctr, Rudolf Magnus Inst Neurosci, Dept Psychiat, Utrecht, Netherlands ; Univ Calif Los Angeles, Semel Inst Neurosci & Human Behav, Ctr Neurobehav Genet, Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA ; Yale Univ, Sch Med, Dept Genet, New Haven, CT 06510 USA ; Univ So Calif, Keck Sch Med, Zilkha Neurogenet Inst, Dept Psychiat & Behav Sci, Los Angeles, CA 90033 USA ; Univ Calif Los Angeles, David Geffen Sch Med, Dept Psychiat & Biobehav Sci, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA ; Yale Univ, Dept Psychol, New Haven, CT 06520 USA ; Partners Psychiat & McLean Hosp, Boston, MA USA ; Sunnybrook Hlth Sci Ctr, Frederick W Thompson Anxiety Disorders Ctr, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada ; St George Hosp, London, England ; Sch Med, London, England ; Hosp Nacl Ninos Dr Carlos Saenz Herrera, San Jose, Costa Rica ; Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Psychiat, Child & Adolescent Psychiat Unit UPIA, São Paulo, Brazil ; Wayne State Univ, Dept Psychiat & Behav Neurosci, Detroit, MI 48207 USA ; Detroit Med Ctr, Detroit, MI USA ; McGill Univ, Montreal Neurol Inst, Montreal, PQ, Canada ; Univ Cologne, Dept Psychiat & Psychotherapy, D-50931 Cologne, Germany ; Univ Fed Bahia, Univ Hlth Care Serv SMURB, Salvador, BA, Brazil ; Youthdale Treatment Ctr, Toronto, ON, Canada ; Johns Hopkins Univ Sch Med, Baltimore, MD USA ; Univ Cape Town, ZA-7925 Cape Town, South Africa ; Univ Med Ctr Utrecht, Dept Med Genet, Utrecht, Netherlands ; Vanderbilt Univ, Kennedy Ctr Res Human Dev, Dept Psychiat, Nashville, TN 37235 USA ; Vanderbilt Univ, Kennedy Ctr Res Human Dev, Dept Pediat & Pharmacol, Nashville, TN 37235 USA ; Vanderbilt Univ, Inst Brain, Nashville, TN 37235 USA ; Univ Zurich, Dept Child & Adolescent Psychiat, Zurich, Switzerland ; Univ Wurzburg, Dept Child & Adolescent Psychiat, D-97070 Wurzburg, Germany ; Univ Amsterdam, Acad Med Ctr, Ctr Psychiat, NL-1105 BC Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Inst Royal Netherlands Acad Arts & Sci NIN KNAW, Netherlands Inst Neurosci, Amsterdam, Netherlands ; NIMH Intramural Res Program, Unit Stat Genom, Bethesda, MD USA ; Univ Utah, Dept Psychiat, Salt Lake City, UT USA ; Natl Inst Genom Med SAP, Carracci Med Grp, Mexico City, DF, Mexico ; Vrije Univ Amsterdam, Ctr Neurogen & Cognit Res, Dept Funct Genom, Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Vrije Univ Amsterdam Med Ctr, Dept Clin Genet, Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Erasmus Univ, Med Ctr, Dept Child & Adolescent Psychiat, Rotterdam, Netherlands ; Univ Michigan, Dept Psychiat, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA ; Vrije Univ Amsterdam, Med Ctr, Dept Clin Genet, Sect Med Genom, Amsterdam, Netherlands ; German Ctr Neurodegenerat Dis, Tubingen, Germany ; Hosp Sick Children, Program Genet & Genome Biol, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada ; Erasmus MC, Dept Clin Genet, Rotterdam, Netherlands ; Univ British Columbia, British Columbia Mental Hlth & Addict Res Inst, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9, Canada ; Brigham & Womens Hosp, Div Cognit & Behav Neurol, Boston, MA 02115 USA ; Massachusetts Gen Hosp, Dept Neurol, Boston, MA 02114 USA ; Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Psychiat, Child & Adolescent Psychiat Unit UPIA, São Paulo, Brazil ; NIH: NS40024 ; NIH: NS16648 ; NIH: MH079489 ; NIH: MH073250 ; NIH: NS037484 ; NIH: 1R01MH079487-01A1 ; NIH: K20 MH01065 ; NIH: R01 MH58376 ; NIH: MH085057 ; NIH: MH079494 ; NIH: HHSN268200782096C ; NIMH: R01MH092293 ; American Recovery and Re-investment Act (ARRA): NS40024-07S1 ; American Recovery and Re-investment Act (ARRA): NS16648-29S1 ; Australian Research Council: FT0991360 ; Australian Research Council: DE130100614 ; Australian National Health and Medical Research Council: 1047956 ; Australian National Health and Medical Research Council: 1052684 ; German Research Foundation: DFG GR 1912/1-1 ; NIH Genes, Environment and Health Initiative [GEI]: U01 HG004422 ; NIH GEI: U01HG004438 ; : R01 MH090937 ; : P50MH094267 ; Web of Science