scholarly journals Maternal environmental risk factors and the development of internalizing and externalizing problems in childhood: The complex role of genetic factors

Author(s):  
Judith B. M. Ensink ◽  
Marleen H. M. Moor ◽  
Mohammad Hadi Zafarmand ◽  
Sanne Laat ◽  
André Uitterlinden ◽  
...  
2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 509-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliana J. Lengua ◽  
Nicole R. Bush ◽  
Anna C. Long ◽  
Erica A. Kovacs ◽  
Anika M. Trancik

AbstractEffortful control was examined as a moderator of the relations of three domains of contextual risk factors to growth in internalizing and externalizing problems in a community sample (N = 189) of children (8–12 years at Time 1). Socioeconomic, maternal, and environmental risk factors were examined as predictors of initial levels and growth in children's adjustment problems across 3 years. The effects of the risk factors depended on children's level of effortful control. For children lower in effortful control, socioeconomic risk was related to significantly higher initial levels of internalizing and externalizing problems and decreases over time. However, children lower in effortful control had higher levels of problems at all three time points than children higher in effortful control. Maternal risk was associated with increases in internalizing for children lower in effortful control, and environmental risk was related to increases in internalizing and externalizing problems for children lower in effortful control, but not those higher in effortful control. Children who were lower in effortful control appeared to experience more adverse effects of contextual risk than those higher in effortful control, suggesting that interventions aimed at improving children's effortful control might serve to protect children from increased risk of adjustment problems associated with contextual risk factors.


1996 ◽  
Vol 168 (S30) ◽  
pp. 68-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Kendler

In both clinical and epidemiological samples, major depression (MD) and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) display substantial comorbidity. In a prior analysis of lifetime MD and GAD in female twins, the same genetic factors were shown to influence the liability to MD and to GAD. A follow-up interview in the same twin cohort examined one-year prevalence for MD and GAD (diagnosed using a one-month minimum duration of illness). Bivariate twin models were fitted using the program Mx. High levels of comorbidity were observed between MD and GAD. The best-fitting twin models, when GAD was diagnosed with or without a diagnostic hierarchy, found a genetic correlation of unity between the two disorders. The correlation in environmental risk factors was +0.70 when GAD was diagnosed non-hierarchically, but zero when hierarchical diagnoses were used. Our findings provide further support for the hypothesis that in women, MD and GAD are the result of the same genetic factors. Environmental risk factors that predispose to ‘pure’ GAD episodes may be relatively distinct from those that increase risk for MD.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (9) ◽  
pp. 773-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Miguel ◽  
Julia Yue Cui ◽  
Lidia Daimiel ◽  
Cristina Espinosa-Díez ◽  
Carlos Fernández-Hernando ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie E. Roos ◽  
Philip A. Fisher ◽  
Daniel S. Shaw ◽  
Hyoun K. Kim ◽  
Jenae M. Neiderhiser ◽  
...  

AbstractRisk factors for the childhood development of co-occurring internalizing and externalizing symptoms are not well understood, despite a high prevalence and poor clinical outcomes associated with this co-occurring phenotype. We examined inherited and environmental risk factors for co-occurring symptoms in a sample of children adopted at birth and their birth mothers and adoptive mothers (N = 293). Inherited risk factors (i.e., birth mothers' processing speed and internalizing symptoms) and environmental risk factors (i.e., adoptive mothers' processing speed, internalizing symptoms, and uninvolved parenting) were examined as predictors for the development of internalizing-only, externalizing-only, or co-occurring symptoms using structural equation modeling. Results suggested a unique pattern of predictive factors for the co-occurring phenotype, with risk conferred by adoptive mothers' uninvolved parenting, birth mothers' slower processing speed, and the birth mothers' slower processing speed in tandem with adoptive mothers' higher internalizing symptoms. Additional analyses indicated that when co-occurring-symptom children were incorporated into internalizing and externalizing symptom groups, differential risk factors for externalizing and internalizing symptoms emerged. The findings suggest that spurious results may be found when children with co-occurring symptoms are not examined as a unique phenotypic group.


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