Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Department of Mental Health, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Mol Psychiatry. 2024 Aug;29(8):2438-2446. doi: 10.1038/s41380-024-02508-6. Epub 2024 Mar 18.
Greater environmental sensitivity has been associated with increased risk of mental health problems, especially in response to stressors, and lower levels of subjective wellbeing. Conversely, sensitivity also correlates with lower risk of emotional problems in the absence of adversity, and in response to positive environmental influences. Additionally, sensitivity has been found to correlate positively with autistic traits. Individual differences in environmental sensitivity are partly heritable, but it is unknown to what extent the aetiological factors underlying sensitivity overlap with those on emotional problems (anxiety and depressive symptoms), autistic traits and wellbeing. The current study used multivariate twin models and data on sensitivity, emotional problems, autistic traits, and several indices of psychological and subjective wellbeing, from over 2800 adolescent twins in England and Wales. We found that greater overall sensitivity correlated with greater emotional problems, autistic traits, and lower subjective wellbeing. A similar pattern of correlations was found for the Excitation and Sensory factors of sensitivity, but, in contrast, the Aesthetic factor was positively correlated with psychological wellbeing, though not with emotional problems nor autistic traits. The observed correlations were largely due to overlapping genetic influences. Importantly, genetic influences underlying sensitivity explained between 2 and 12% of the variations in emotional problems, autistic traits, and subjective wellbeing, independent of trait-specific or overlapping genetic influences. These findings encourage incorporating the genetics of environmental sensitivity in future genomic studies aiming to delineate the heterogeneity in emotional problems, autistic traits, and wellbeing.
环境敏感性与心理健康问题的风险增加有关，尤其是在应对压力源时，以及主观幸福感降低时。相反，在没有逆境的情况下，敏感性也与情绪问题的风险降低有关，并且对积极的环境影响有反应。此外，敏感性与自闭症特征呈正相关。环境敏感性的个体差异部分是遗传的，但尚不清楚敏感性的发病因素在多大程度上与情绪问题（焦虑和抑郁症状）、自闭症特征和幸福感重叠。本研究使用多变量双胞胎模型和来自英格兰和威尔士的 2800 多名青少年双胞胎的敏感性、情绪问题、自闭症特征以及心理和主观幸福感的几个指标的数据。我们发现，整体敏感性越高，与情绪问题、自闭症特征和主观幸福感越低呈正相关。敏感性的兴奋和感觉因素也呈现出类似的相关模式，但与之相反，审美因素与心理健康呈正相关，尽管与情绪问题或自闭症特征无关。观察到的相关性主要归因于重叠的遗传影响。重要的是，敏感性背后的遗传影响解释了情绪问题、自闭症特征和主观幸福感变化的 2%至 12%，独立于特定于特质或重叠的遗传影响。这些发现鼓励在未来旨在描绘情绪问题、自闭症特征和幸福感异质性的基因组研究中纳入环境敏感性的遗传学。
