Behavior Genetics最新文献

We aimed to understand the long-term impact of negative life events on epigenetic aging in 1783 adults from the Netherlands Twin Register, analyzing five epigenetic biomarkers (Hannum, Horvath, PhenoAge, GrimAge, DunedinPACE) and a series of negative life events, including victimization and economic hardship. In population-level analyses, associations between a higher number of negative life events (particularly financial adversities, sexual crimes, and job loss) were seen for the GrimAge biomarker. The association between the number of negative life events and financial problems and epigenetic age acceleration measured by the GrimAge biomarker persisted after adjusting for BMI, smoking, and white blood cell counts. In monozygotic twin pairs discordant for negative life events (263 pairs) the associations were diminished, indicating that the population associations may be confounded by shared familial (genetic and environmental) factors. These findings underscore the intricate link between environmental stressors and biological aging, stressing the need for comprehensive studies considering both genetic and environmental influences.

Breastfeeding is hypothesised to benefit child health and cognitive functioning by providing long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are essential for brain development. In 2007, Caspi et al. found evidence in two cohorts for an interaction between genetic variation in the FADS2 gene (a gene involved in fatty acid metabolism) and breastfeeding on IQ. However, subsequent studies have provided mixed evidence for the existence of an interaction. We investigated the relationship between genetic variation in the FADS2 region, breastfeeding, and their interaction in up to 335,650 individuals from the UK Biobank. We tested for the interaction over a range of cognitive functioning tests, as well as educational attainment and other traits thought to be influenced by breastfeeding, including cardiometabolic traits, number of offspring, and atopic allergy. FADS2 alleles associated with an increase in docosahexaenoic acid in blood serum (the C allele of rs174575) were associated with decreased verbal-numerical reasoning ( $p=2.28\times {10}^{-5}$ ) and triglycerides ( $p=1.40\times {10}^{-41}$ ), increased number of offspring ( $p=3.40\times {10}^{-5}$ ), total cholesterol ( $p=5.28\times {10}^{-36}$ ), HDL ( $p=1.42\times {10}^{-51}$ ), and LDL cholesterol ( $p=1.46\times {10}^{-21}$ ). We observed no evidence of an interaction in any of the traits, regardless of the modelling strategy on any cognitive or non-cognitive traits. We postulate that the previous positive findings are likely to be spurious, perhaps due to lack of appropriate control for latent population structure.

Artificial selection yielded four replicate high runner (HR) lines of mice that reached apparent selection limits (~ threefold increase in wheel revolutions per day vs. four control lines), despite maintenance of additive genetic variance. After 68 generations, we used animal models to test for changes in additive-genetic variances and covariance of the two measured components (average speed and duration) of running distance. We also attempted to break the selection limit by crossing two HR lines, then continuing directional selection on this hybrid line and on the two parental lines for nine generations. The genetic correlation between speed and duration was positive in the base population, but evolved to be negative in the two parental HR lines. Although heritability for both speed and duration (but not distance) increased in the hybrid line, their genetic correlation remained negative. Hybrid F₁ mice from generation 68 parents showed heterosis for running distance, which was lost in subsequent generations, and the hybrid line did not exceed the limit. Both male and female hybrids ran faster than parental lines for most generations, but running duration was intermediate or reduced, reflecting their negative genetic correlation. The evolved genetic trade-off between speed and duration may explain the inability for the hybrid line to break the selection limit for distance run, despite renewed additive genetic variance for at least one of its component traits.

Causal inference is inherently complex and relies on key assumptions that can be difficult to validate. One strong assumption is population homogeneity, which assumes that the causal direction remains consistent across individuals. However, there may be variation in causal directions across subpopulations, leading to potential heterogeneity. In psychiatry, for example, the co-occurrence of disorders such as depression and substance use disorder can arise from multiple sources, including shared genetic or environmental factors (common causes) or direct causal pathways between the disorders. A patient diagnosed with two disorders might have one recognized as primary and the other as secondary, suggesting the existence of different types of comorbidity. For example, in some individuals, depression might lead to substance use, while in others, substance use could lead to depression. We account for potential heterogeneity in causal direction by integrating the Direction of Causation (DoC) model for twin data with finite mixture modeling, which allows for the calculation of individual-level likelihoods for alternate causal directions. Through simulations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of using the Direction of Causation Twin Mixture (mixDoC) model to detect and model heterogeneity due to varying causal directions.

Experimental evolution is a powerful approach to study the mechanisms underlying the adaptation of selected characters under the conditions chosen in the laboratory. Drosophila melanogaster is a species frequently used to investigate the experimental evolution of characters, especially those related to reproduction. Recent intra-generational studies showed that cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVa), a sex pheromone transferred with bacteria on eggs by females either 1 day (D1) or 5 days (D5) after copulation, differentially affected the behavior and pheromone release in adult males emerging from these eggs. Here, we extended this finding to determine whether this alternative egg exposure repeated over many generations could affect a larger set of reproduction-related characters in both sexes. To test the repetitive effects of maternal D1 or D5 post-copulatory factors, we carried out an experimental selection procedure consisting of exposing eggs during 40 successive generations to D1 or D5 maternal post-copulatory factors. We compared cVa and cuticular pheromones, courtship and mating behaviors, and fecundity at different generations in flies of D1 and D5 lines. Based on findings obtained at earlier generations, we also determined survival, bacterial composition and gene expression in adults. Some of these complex traits significantly diverged between D1 and D5 lines indicating that maternal post-copulatory factors transmitted to eggs can influence adult life history traits.

Education-related variables are positively associated with intelligence in both causal directions, but little is known about the associations' underlying genetically and environmentally intertwined processes and many 'third variables' are probably involved too. In this study, we investigated how school achievement, measured by grade point average (GPA), moderated intelligence test score variation in young adulthood in broadly representative samples from the U.S. state of Minnesota, Denmark, and Germany, attempting to improve both understanding of the importance of environmental contexts and the limitations of currently available modelling techniques to help remedy them. School achievement was positively associated with intelligence test scores in all three contexts, but it moderated variances differently, even within the two cohorts comprising the Minnesota sample. One Minnesota cohort and the German sample suggested that shared environmental variance was larger among individuals with extreme GPAs, while the Danish sample suggested that this was only true among individuals with low GPAs. In contrast to these observations, the other Minnesota cohort suggested that genetic and non-shared environmental variances were greater among individuals with high GPAs. These observations indicated that underlying individual developmental processes and population-level impacts differed. However, our statistical models did not capture these differences clearly. The ways in which they failed all suggested the model limitations involve an inability to address degrees to which environmental constraints restrain social movements that are confounded with individual variations in capacities to move within society.

Risky sexual behavior (RSB) has been linked to externalizing problems, substance use, and, in a recent study by our lab, internalizing problems. The current study builds upon previous work investigating the relationship between RSB and internalizing problems (INT) by controlling for externalizing problems (EXT) to account for the correlation between INT and EXT. We used a twin sample from Colorado (N = 2,544) to investigate phenotypic and genetic relationships between the three latent constructs, as well as potential sex differences in those relationships. We hypothesized that the relationship between RSB and INT would be stronger for females than for males, whereas the relationship between RSB and EXT would be stronger for males than for females. We used phenotypic confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate twin analyses to address research questions. Our results show significant phenotypic relationships among RSB, INT, and EXT and provide modest evidence in males for a significant association between RSB and INT that persists when controlling for EXT, a finding which we interpret with caution. Our sex differences hypothesis was not fully supported, although the direction of effects was in the direction hypothesized for the association between RSB and INT. We discuss the complexity of RSB as a phenotype and the potential implications for public health.