Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2013 Dec;54(12):1308-17. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12081. Epub 2013 Jun 6.
The low expression polymorphism of the MAOA gene in interaction with adverse environments (G × E) is associated with antisocial behaviour disorders. These have their origins in early life, but it is not known whether MAOA G × E occurs in infants. We therefore examined whether MAOA G × E predicts infant anger proneness, a temperamental dimension associated with later antisocial behaviour disorders. In contrast to previous studies, we examined MAOA G × E prospectively using an observational measure of a key aspect of the infant environment, maternal sensitivity, at a specified developmental time point.
In a stratified epidemiological cohort recruited during pregnancy, we ascertained MAOA status (low vs. high expression alleles) from the saliva of 193 infants, and examined specific predictions to maternal report of infant temperament at 14 months from maternal sensitivity assessed at 29 weeks of age.
Analyses, weighted to provide general population estimates, indicated a robust interaction between MAOA status and maternal sensitivity in the prediction of infant anger proneness (p = .003) which became stronger once possible confounders for maternal sensitivity were included in the model (p = .0001). The interaction terms were similar in males (p = .010) and females (p = .016), but the effects were different as a consequence of an additional sex of infant by maternal sensitivity interaction.
This prospective study provides the first evidence of moderation by the MAOA gene of effects of parenting on infant anger proneness, an important early risk for the development of disruptive and aggressive behaviour disorders.
MAOA 基因的低表达多态性与不利环境（G×E）相互作用与反社会行为障碍有关。这些障碍起源于早期生活，但尚不清楚 MAOA G×E 是否发生在婴儿期。因此，我们研究了 MAOA G×E 是否可以预测婴儿的易激怒倾向，这是一种与后来的反社会行为障碍相关的气质维度。与以前的研究不同，我们使用对婴儿环境的一个关键方面（即母亲敏感性）的观察性测量，在特定的发育时间点前瞻性地检查了 MAOA G×E。
在一项妊娠期间招募的分层流行病学队列中，我们从 193 名婴儿的唾液中确定了 MAOA 状态（低表达与高表达等位基因），并检查了在 29 周龄时评估的母亲敏感性与 14 个月时婴儿气质的具体预测值。
分析结果（加权以提供总体人群估计值）表明，MAOA 状态与母亲敏感性在预测婴儿易激怒倾向方面存在强大的交互作用（p=0.003），一旦将可能影响母亲敏感性的混杂因素纳入模型，这种交互作用就会增强（p=0.0001）。在男性（p=0.010）和女性（p=0.016）中，交互项相似，但由于婴儿性别与母亲敏感性的额外交互作用，影响也不同。
这项前瞻性研究首次提供了证据，证明 MAOA 基因可以调节育儿对婴儿易激怒倾向的影响，而婴儿易激怒倾向是发展破坏性行为和攻击性行为障碍的一个重要早期风险因素。
