Mackintosh Margaret-Anne, Gatz Margaret, Wetherell Julie Loebach, Pedersen Nancy L
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1061, USA.
Twin Res Hum Genet. 2006 Feb;9(1):30-7. doi: 10.1375/183242706776402902.
The nature of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and worry across the lifespan remains incompletely understood. We investigated genetic and environmental influences on GAD and the proportion of genetic and environmental variation in GAD that is shared with neuroticism in older adult twins. Participants included 1618 monozygotic and 2291 same-sexed dizygotic twin pairs from the Swedish Twin Registry aged 55 to 74. Participants provided personality information in 1973 and also participated in a telephone screening between 1998 and 2002 that included an assessment for lifetime GAD. Univariate biometric models indicated that both GAD and neuroticism were moderately heritable (.27 and .47, respectively), while the balance of variation reflected environmental factors unique to the individual. Bivariate analyses indicated that approximately one third of the genetic influences on GAD were in common with genetic influences on neuroticism, while individual specific environmental influences were virtually unshared between GAD and neuroticism. Analyses of sex effects suggested that men and women differed in the frequency of lifetime GAD and level of neuroticism; however, no sex differences for genetic and environmental influences for either trait were identified.
广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD）的本质以及一生中的担忧仍未被完全理解。我们调查了对GAD的遗传和环境影响，以及老年双胞胎中GAD与神经质共享的遗传和环境变异比例。参与者包括来自瑞典双胞胎登记处的1618对同卵双胞胎和2291对同性异卵双胞胎，年龄在55至74岁之间。参与者在1973年提供了人格信息，并在1998年至2002年期间参加了电话筛查，其中包括对终生GAD的评估。单变量生物统计学模型表明，GAD和神经质都具有中等遗传性（分别为0.27和0.47），而变异的其余部分反映了个体独特的环境因素。双变量分析表明，对GAD的遗传影响中约有三分之一与对神经质的遗传影响相同，而个体特异性环境影响在GAD和神经质之间几乎没有共享。性别效应分析表明，男性和女性在终生GAD的频率和神经质水平上存在差异；然而，未发现这两种特质在遗传和环境影响方面存在性别差异。
