Allegrini A G, Hannigan L J, Frach L, Barkhuizen W, Baldwin J R, Andreassen O A, Bragantini D, Hegemann L, Havdahl A, Pingault J-B
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Nat Commun. 2025 Mar 18;16(1):2674. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-57694-w.
Childhood emotional and behavioural difficulties tend to co-occur and often precede diagnosed neuropsychiatric conditions. Identifying shared and specific risk factors for early-life mental health difficulties is therefore essential for prevention strategies. Here, we examine how parental risk factors shape their offspring's emotional and behavioural symptoms (e.g. feelings of anxiety, and restlessness) using data from 14,959 genotyped family trios from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). We model maternal reports of emotional and behavioural symptoms, organizing them into general and specific domains. We then investigate the direct (genetically transmitted) and indirect (environmentally mediated) contributions of parental polygenic risk for neuropsychiatric-related traits and whether these are shared across symptoms. We observe evidence consistent with an environmental route to general symptomatology beyond genetic transmission, while also demonstrating domain-specific direct and indirect genetic contributions. These findings improve our understanding of early risk pathways that can be targeted in preventive interventions aiming to interrupt the intergenerational cycle of risk transmission.
儿童期的情绪和行为问题往往同时出现，并且常常先于被诊断出的神经精神疾病。因此，确定早期心理健康问题的共同和特定风险因素对于预防策略至关重要。在这里，我们利用来自挪威母亲、父亲和儿童队列研究（MoBa）的14959个基因分型家庭三联体的数据，研究父母的风险因素如何塑造其后代的情绪和行为症状（如焦虑感和坐立不安）。我们对母亲报告的情绪和行为症状进行建模，将它们分为一般领域和特定领域。然后，我们研究父母神经精神相关性状的多基因风险的直接（基因传递）和间接（环境介导）贡献，以及这些贡献在症状之间是否共享。我们观察到的证据表明，除了基因传递之外，还存在一条通向一般症状学的环境途径，同时也证明了特定领域的直接和间接基因贡献。这些发现增进了我们对早期风险途径的理解，这些途径可以成为旨在中断风险传递代际循环的预防性干预措施的目标。
