Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.
Department of Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2019 Apr;180(3):204-212. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32714. Epub 2019 Feb 1.
Fear and anxiety are conceptualized as responses to acute or potential threat, respectively. Adult twin studies found substantial interplay between genetic and environmental factors influencing fear disorders (phobias) and anxiety disorders. Research in children, however, has largely examined these factors independently. Thus, there exists a substantial knowledge gap regarding the underlying etiologic structure of these closely-related constructs during development. Symptom counts for five fear (criticism, the unknown, death, animal, medical) and four anxiety (generalized, panic, separation, social) dimensions were obtained for 373 twin pairs ages 9-14. Multivariate twin modeling was performed to elucidate the genetic and environmental influences distributed amongst these dimensions. The best fitting model contained one genetic, two familial environmental, and two unique environmental factors shared between fear and anxiety symptoms plus dimension-specific genetic and unique environmental factors. Although several environmental factors were shared between fear and anxiety dimensions, one latent factor accounted for genetic influences across both domains. While adult studies find somewhat distinct etiological differences between anxiety and phobic disorders, the current results suggest that their relative genetic and environmental influences are not as clearly demarcated in children. These etiological distinctions are more nuanced, likely contributing to the highly diffuse symptom patterns seen during development.
恐惧和焦虑分别被概念化为对急性或潜在威胁的反应。成人双胞胎研究发现，遗传和环境因素在影响恐惧障碍（恐惧症）和焦虑障碍方面存在着大量的相互作用。然而，儿童研究在很大程度上是独立地研究这些因素的。因此，在发展过程中，对于这些密切相关的结构的潜在病因结构，存在着大量的知识差距。对 373 对年龄在 9 至 14 岁的双胞胎进行了五项恐惧（批评、未知、死亡、动物、医疗）和四项焦虑（广泛性、恐慌、分离、社会）维度的症状计数。进行了多变量双胞胎模型分析，以阐明这些维度之间的遗传和环境影响。拟合最好的模型包含一个遗传因素、两个家庭环境因素和两个在恐惧和焦虑症状之间共享的独特环境因素，以及维度特异性遗传因素和独特环境因素。尽管恐惧和焦虑维度之间存在一些环境因素共享，但一个潜在因素解释了两个领域的遗传影响。虽然成人研究发现焦虑症和恐惧症之间存在一些不同的病因差异，但目前的结果表明，它们在儿童中的相对遗传和环境影响并没有那么明显。这些病因差异更加微妙，可能导致在发育过程中出现高度弥散的症状模式。
