Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont, USA.
Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2012 Jan;159B(1):120-7. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32010. Epub 2011 Dec 7.
Thoughts of self-harm and suicidal behavior are thought to be influenced by both genetics and environment. Molecular genetic studies are beginning to address the question of which genes may be involved and whether different genes may be expressed in men and women. We examined thoughts of self-harm and suicidal behavior in a large general population twin sample including male and female same- and opposite-sex twins. In this study, data on self-reported thoughts of self-harm and suicide were obtained from self-report questionnaires (Beck Depression Inventory and Youth or Adult Self Report forms) in 6,265 twin pairs (11,008 individuals) aged 11-90 (62% female) from the Netherlands Twin Registry. Liability threshold models were compared including sex and age (linear and quadratic) effects. Models were compared using measures of parsimony to calculate the simplest model to the data. A model with additive genetic and unique environmental contributions fitted the data for both males and females. There were no qualitative sex differences, but the relative contributions differed between men and women. Heritability was higher in women (0.74, 95% CI 0.65-0.81) than men (0.45, 95% CI 0.28-0.61). The remaining variance was accounted for by environmental influence unique to an individual. These results suggest contributions from additive genetic factors to self-reported thoughts of self-harm and suicide and support the continued study of both molecular genetic and individual-specific environmental risk factors.
自残和自杀行为的想法被认为受到遗传和环境的双重影响。分子遗传学研究开始探讨哪些基因可能参与其中，以及不同的基因是否在男性和女性中表达。我们在一个包括男性和女性同性别和异性别双胞胎的大型普通人群双胞胎样本中检查了自残和自杀行为的想法。在这项研究中，来自荷兰双胞胎登记处的 6265 对双胞胎（11008 人），年龄在 11-90 岁之间（62%为女性），通过自我报告问卷（贝克抑郁量表和青少年或成人自我报告表）获得了自我报告的自残和自杀想法的数据。包括性别和年龄（线性和二次）效应在内的 Liability threshold 模型进行了比较。使用简约性措施比较模型，以计算最简单的模型以适应数据。一个具有加性遗传和独特环境贡献的模型适用于男性和女性。没有定性的性别差异，但男性和女性之间的相对贡献不同。女性的遗传率较高（0.74，95%置信区间为 0.65-0.81），男性为 0.45（95%置信区间为 0.28-0.61）。其余的方差由个体特有的环境影响解释。这些结果表明，加性遗传因素对自我报告的自残和自杀想法有贡献，并支持继续研究分子遗传和个体特定的环境风险因素。
