Continuity of genetic risk for aggressive behavior across the life-course
File(s)
Author(s)
van der Laan, Camiel M
Morosoli-García, José J
van de Weijer, Steve GA
Colodro-Conde, Lucía
ACTION Consortium
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We test whether genetic influences that explain individual differences in aggression in early life also explain individual differences across the life-course. In two cohorts from The Netherlands (N = 13,471) and Australia (N = 5628), polygenic scores (PGSs) were computed based on a genome-wide meta-analysis of childhood/adolescence aggression. In a novel analytic approach, we ran a mixed effects model for each age (Netherlands: 12-70 years, Australia: 16-73 years), with observations at the focus age weighted as 1, and decaying weights for ages further away. We call this approach a 'rolling weights' model. In The Netherlands, the estimated effect of the PGS was relatively similar from age 12 to age 41, and decreased from age 41-70. In Australia, there was a peak in the effect of the PGS around age 40 years. These results are a first indication from a molecular genetics perspective that genetic influences on aggressive behavior that are expressed in childhood continue to play a role later in life.
Date Issued
2021-08-14
Date Acceptance
2021-06-23
Citation
Behavior Genetics: an international journal devoted to research in the inheritance of behavior in animals and man, 2021, 51 (5), pp.592-606
ISSN
0001-8244
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
592
End Page
606
Journal / Book Title
Behavior Genetics: an international journal devoted to research in the inheritance of behavior in animals and man
Volume
51
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34390460
PII: 10.1007/s10519-021-10076-6
Subjects
Aggression
Aggressive behavior
Development
Life-course
Polygenic score
Rolling weights
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States