Interaction Between Experience Seeking and Genetic and Environmental Influences on General Cognitive Ability

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna A. E. Vinkhuyzen ◽  
Sophie van der Sluis ◽  
Danielle Posthuma
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Phenotypic Correlation ◽  
General Cognitive Ability ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
Environmental Causes ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
Adult Twins

Although it is well established that experience seeking behavior (ES) is positively related to cognitive functioning, the mechanisms underlying this association are not clearly understood. In a large sample of adult twins and siblings (N = 864, age range 23–75), we studied the causes of covariation between ES and general cognitive ability and we studied whether ES moderates the genetic and environmental causes of variation in general cognitive ability. Results demonstrate a phenotypic correlation of .17 (p <.001) between general cognitive ability and ES, with a common genetic and common environmental background. Moreover, the extent to which genetic and environmental factors are shared between general cognitive ability and ES is increased in individuals with either lower or higher levels of ES. In addition, the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence individual differences in general cognitive ability in adults partly depended on ES. Standardized influences of additive genetic factors on general cognitive ability ranged from 13% to 99%, with lower estimates in higher levels of ES, while standardized estimates of environmental factors ranged from almost 1% to 87%, with higher estimates in higher levels of ES. Hence, ES and cognitive ability are not only associated through common genetic and environmental factors, but also via moderating effects of genetic and environmental influences on cognitive ability by ES. These findings have implications for future studies on the association between ES and general cognitive ability, and for future research on the genetics of cognitive ability.

scholarly journals Sex Differences in Genetic and Environmental Influences on Educational Attainment and Income

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 516-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ragnhild E. Ørstavik ◽  
Nikolai Czajkowski ◽  
Espen Røysamb ◽  
Gun Peggy Knudsen ◽  
Kristian Tambs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Phenotypic Correlation ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
The Relationship

In many Western countries, women now reach educational levels comparable to men, although their income remains considerably lower. For the past decades, it has become increasingly clear that these measures of socio-economic status are influenced by genetic as well as environmental factors. Less is known about the relationship between education and income, and sex differences. The aim of this study was to explore genetic and environmental factors influencing education and income in a large cohort of young Norwegian twins, with special emphasis on gender differences. National register data on educational level and income were obtained for 7,710 twins (aged 29–41 years). Bivariate Cholesky models were applied to estimate qualitative and quantitative gender differences in genetic and environmental influences, the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the correlation between education and income, and genetic correlations within and between sexes and phenotypes. The phenotypic correlation between educational level and income was 0.34 (0.32–0.39) for men and 0.45 (0.43–0.48) for women. An ACE model with both qualitative and quantitative sex differences fitted the data best. The genetic correlation between men and women (rg) was 0.66 (0.22–1.00) for educational attainment and 0.38 (0.01–0.75) for income, and between the two phenotypes 0.31 (0.08–0.52) for men and 0.72 (0.64–0.85) for women. Our results imply that, in relatively egalitarian societies with state-supported access to higher education and political awareness of gender equality, genetic factors may play an important role in explaining sex differences in the relationship between education and income.

Developmental changes in genetic and environmental influences on Chinese child and adolescent anxiety and depression

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (9) ◽  
pp. 1829-1838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Zheng ◽  
F. Rijsdijk ◽  
J.-B. Pingault ◽  
R. J. McMahon ◽  
J. B. Unger
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Child And Adolescent ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Late Childhood ◽  
Adolescent Anxiety

BackgroundTwin and family studies using Western samples have established that child and adolescent anxiety and depression are under substantial genetic, modest shared environmental, and substantial non-shared environmental influences. Generalizability of these findings to non-Western societies remains largely unknown, particularly regarding the changes of genetic and environmental influences with age. The current study examined changes in genetic and environmental influences on self-reported anxiety and depression from late childhood to mid-adolescence among a Chinese twin sample. Sex differences were also examined.MethodSelf-reported anxiety and depression were collected from 712 10- to 12-year-old Chinese twins (mean = 10.88 years, 49% males) and again 3 years later. Quantitative genetic modeling was used to examine developmental changes in genetic and environmental influences on anxiety and depression, and sex differences.ResultsHeritability of anxiety and depression in late childhood (23 and 20%) decreased to negligible in mid-adolescence, while shared environmental influences increased (20 and 27% to 57 and 60%). Shared environmental factors explained most of the continuity of anxiety and depression (75 and 77%). Non-shared environmental factors were largely time-specific. No sex differences were observed.ConclusionsShared environmental influences might be more pronounced during the transition period of adolescence in non-Western societies such as China. Future research should examine similarities and differences in the genetic and environmental etiologies of child and adolescent internalizing and other psychopathology in development between Western and non-Western societies.

scholarly journals Genetics of Body Mass Stability and Risk for Chronic Disease: A 28-Year Longitudinal Study

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol E. Franz ◽  
Michael D. Grant ◽  
Kristen C. Jacobson ◽  
William S. Kremen ◽  
Seth A. Eisen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Genetic Correlations ◽  
Phenotypic Correlation ◽  
Similar Time ◽  
Ww Ii ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Adult Onset Diabetes ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

AbstractWe examined the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to body mass index (BMI) over approximately 28 years. Participants were 693 male, predominantly middle-class, twins (355 monozygotic, 338 dizygotic) from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry. The phenotypic correlation between age 20 and age 48 BMI was 0.52; the genetic correlation was 0.60. Most of the remaining variance at both times was accounted for by nonshared environmental factors. Since genetic factors are not perfectly correlated, this indicates that other genes affect BMI at one or both time points, leaving room for further exploration of the genetics of body mass stability. Mean BMI increased significantly from 22.7 (normal) to 27.8 (overweight). Overweight BMI at age 20 predicted midlife adult onset diabetes (adjusted odds ratio = 4.62, 95% CI 1.91 to 11.18), but not hypertension. Depending on one's vantage point, the results indicate elements of both stability and change in BMI. Very similar phenotypic and genetic correlations were observed over a similar time period in a WW II twin sample, but without the substantial mean increase in BMI. It seems unlikely that different genes influence BMI in the two cohorts. Therefore, we argue that nonshared environmental factors are probably primarily responsible for the secular increase in midlife BMI. Our results also provide prospective evidence that early excess BMI may have serious long-term health consequences, and that this risk is not limited to minorities or adults of lower socioeconomic status.

scholarly journals How Nonshared Environmental Factors Come to Correlate with Heredity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Beam ◽  
Patrizia Pezzoli ◽  
Jane Mendle ◽  
S. Alexandra Burt ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Genetic Models ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Longitudinal Models ◽  
Behavioral Genetic ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Environment Effects ◽  
Gene Environment ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
Over Time

Conventional longitudinal behavioral genetic models estimate the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to stability and change of traits and behaviors. Longitudinal models rarely explain the processes that generate observed differences between genetically and socially related individuals. We propose that exchanges between people and their environments (i.e., phenotype-environment effects) can explain the emergence of observed differences over time. Such models, however, require violation of the independence assumption of standard behavioral genetic models, that is, uncorrelated genetic and environmental factors (Beam &amp; Turkheimer, 2013; de Kort, Dolan, &amp; Boomsma, 2012; Dolan, De Kort, Van Beijsterveldt, Bartels, &amp; Boomsma, 2014). We review how specification of phenotype-environment effects contributes to understanding observed changes in genetic variability over time and longitudinal correlations among nonshared environmental factors. We then provide an example using 30 days of positive and negative affect scores from an all-female sample of twins. Results demonstrate that the phenotype-environment effects explain how heritability estimates fluctuate as well as how nonshared environmental factors persist over time. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying change in gene-environment correlation over time, the advantages and challenges of including gene-environment correlation in longitudinal twin models, and recommendations for future research.

Genetics of physical activity and physical fitness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nienke M Schutte ◽  
Meike Bartels ◽  
Eco JC de Geus
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Exercise Intervention ◽  
Measurement Instrument ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
Children And Adolescent ◽  
Sources Of Variation ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

Regular physical activity and fitness are key contributors to children’s health. It is important to understand sources of variation in phenotypes seen among children and adolescents. It is important to calculate the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors to observed individual differences. Heritability estimates of physical activity vary, depending on sample size and measurement instrument, but the overall importance of environmental factors seems to decrease in adolescence, whereas genetic effects become more prominent. Twin and family studies show that individual differences in maximal oxygen uptake, muscle strength, flexibility, and balance are affected by genetic factors. Some evidence is found for specific genes coding for physical activity and fitness, but children and adolescent studies are limited. Future research should prioritize these target groups as knowledge of the source of individual differences in physical activity and fitness at different time points can optimize the choice and timing of exercise intervention.

scholarly journals Cannabis use and psychosis: the origins and implications of an association

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 400-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Environmental Influence ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Cannabis Use ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Psychotic Illness ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

Evidence for the effectiveness of treatment or secondary prevention of psychotic illness such as schizophrenia is often disappointing. This situation reflects our limited understanding of the aetiology of psychosis. There is good evidence that both genetic and environmental factors are implicated but the precise identity of these is unclear. Cannabis use is one candidate as a possible, modifiable environmental influence on both incidence and prognosis of psychosis. Evidence supporting this candidature is exclusively observational, and its strength has perhaps been overestimated and problems related to its interpretation underestimated by some. Nevertheless the possibility that cannabis does cause psychosis remains. Because of this, and because there are other good public health reasons to prevent cannabis use, interventions targeting use need to be evaluated. This evaluation, along with other imaginative approaches to future research, is needed to further our understanding of the determinants of mental illness and how we can most effectively improve the population's mental health.

scholarly journals The impact of environmental interventions among mouse siblings on the heritability and malleability of general cognitive ability

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1756) ◽  
pp. 20170289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Sauce ◽  
Sophie Bendrath ◽  
Margalit Herzfeld ◽  
Dan Siegel ◽  
Conner Style ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Environmental Enrichment ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
General Cognitive Ability ◽  
Environmental Variance ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Gene Environment ◽  
The Impact

General cognitive ability can be highly heritable in some species, but at the same time, is very malleable. This apparent paradox could potentially be explained by gene–environment interactions and correlations that remain hidden due to experimental limitations on human research and blind spots in animal research. Here, we shed light on this issue by combining the design of a sibling study with an environmental intervention administered to laboratory mice. The analysis included 58 litters of four full-sibling genetically heterogeneous CD-1 male mice, for a total of 232 mice. We separated the mice into two subsets of siblings: a control group (maintained in standard laboratory conditions) and an environmental-enrichment group (which had access to continuous physical exercise and daily exposure to novel environments). We found that general cognitive ability in mice has substantial heritability (24% for all mice) and is also malleable. The mice that experienced the enriched environment had a mean intelligence score that was 0.44 standard deviations higher than their siblings in the control group (equivalent to gains of 6.6 IQ points in humans). We also found that the estimate of heritability changed between groups (55% in the control group compared with non-significant 15% in the enrichment group), analogous to findings in humans across socio-economic status. Unexpectedly, no evidence of gene–environment interaction was detected, and so the change in heritability might be best explained by higher environmental variance in the enrichment group. Our findings, as well as the ‘sibling intervention procedure’ for mice, may be valuable to future research on the heritability, mechanisms and evolution of cognition. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities’.

Bulimia nervosa and major depression: a study of common genetic and environmental factors

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen E. Walters ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Lindon J. Eaves ◽  
Andrew C. Heath ◽  
Ronald C. Kessler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Environmental Risk Factors ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Clinical Diagnoses ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

SynopsisA genetic analysis of the co-occurrence of bulimia and major depression (MD) was performed on 1033 female twin pairs obtained from a population based register. Personal interviews were conducted and clinical diagnoses made according to DSM-III-R criteria.Additive genes, but not family environment, are found to play an important aetiological role in both bulimia and MD. The genetic liabilities of the two disorders are correlated 0·456. While unique environmental factors account for around half of the variation in liability to both bulimia and MD, these risk factors appear to be unrelated, i.e., each disorder has its own set of unique environmental risk factors. Thus, the genetic liability of bulimia and MD is neither highly specific nor entirely nonspecific. There is some genetic correlation between the two disorders as well as some genetic and environmental risk factors unique to each disorder. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Genetic and environmental influences on sociopolitical attitudes

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Bell ◽  
Christian Kandler ◽  
Rainer Riemann
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Report ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
German Sample ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Sociopolitical Attitudes ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
Peer Reports

A new paradigm has emerged in which both genetic and environmental factors are cited as possible influences on sociopolitical attitudes. Despite the increasing acceptance of this paradigm, several aspects of the approach remain underdeveloped. Specifically, limitations arise from a reliance on a twins-only design, and all previous studies have used self-reports only. There are also questions about the extent to which existing findings generalize cross-culturally. To address those issues, this study examined individual differences in liberalism/conservatism in a German sample that included twins, their parents, and their spouses and incorporated both self- and peer reports. The self-report findings from this extended twin family design were largely consistent with previous research that used that rater perspective, but they provided higher estimates of heritability, shared parental environmental influences, assortative mating, and genotype-environment correlation than the results from peer reports. The implications of these findings for the measurement and understanding of sociopolitical attitudes are explored.

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