Published Articles

pubmedvcu

• Genetic association study of childhood aggression across raters, instruments, and age July 31, 2021
  Childhood aggressive behavior (AGG) has a substantial heritability of around 50%. Here we present a genome-wide association meta-analysis (GWAMA) of childhood AGG, in which all phenotype measures across childhood ages from multiple assessors were included. We analyzed phenotype assessments for a total of 328 935 observations from 87 485 children aged between 1.5 and 18 […]
  Hill F Ip
• Maternal biological age assessed in early pregnancy is associated with gestational age at birth July 30, 2021
  Maternal age is an established predictor of preterm birth independent of other recognized risk factors. The use of chronological age makes the assumption that individuals age at a similar rate. Therefore, it does not capture interindividual differences that may exist due to genetic background and environmental exposures. As a result, there is a need to […]
  Eva E Lancaster
• Facets of social support are differentially predictive of mental health outcomes July 16, 2021
  No abstract
  Brianna George
• Prosper Lucas and his 1850 "Philosophical and Physiological Treatise on Natural Heredity" July 15, 2021
  Prosper Lucas (1808-1885) is a unique figure in the history of psychiatric genetics. A physician-alienist, he authored one of the most important books on human genetics in the mid-19th century cited frequently by Darwin: the 1,500 page treatise-Philosophical and Physiological Treatise on Natural Heredity (1847-1850). This book contained a novel theory of the nature of […]
  Kenneth S Kendler
• On the Genetic and Environmental Relationship Between Suicide Attempt and Death by Suicide July 14, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: The genetic and environmental etiologies of suicide attempt and death are partially overlapping, exhibit modest sex differences, and shift across the life course. These differences must be considered when developing prevention efforts and risk prediction algorithms. Where feasible, suicide attempt and death should be considered separately rather than collapsed, including in the context of […]
  Alexis C Edwards
• Investigation of convergent and divergent genetic influences underlying schizophrenia and alcohol use disorder July 7, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide further evidence that SCZ shares meaningful genetic overlap with AUD.
  Emma C Johnson
• Mental health and music engagement: review, framework, and guidelines for future studies July 6, 2021
  Is engaging with music good for your mental health? This question has long been the topic of empirical clinical and nonclinical investigations, with studies indicating positive associations between music engagement and quality of life, reduced depression or anxiety symptoms, and less frequent substance use. However, many earlier investigations were limited by small populations and methodological […]
  Daniel E Gustavson
• The nature of hereditary influences on insanity from research on asylum records in Western Europe in the mid-19th century July 6, 2021
  This article explores the nature of psychiatric genetics research conducted in asylums in Western Europe in the mid-19th century through an examination of four studies published 1841 to 1864 from Great Britain, France, and Germany. They all utilize asylum records to determine if patients had a hereditary predisposition (HP) to mental illness. A diverse range […]
  Kenneth S Kendler
• Unpacking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: identifying structural domains July 5, 2021
  Background: The novel coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic is a collective crisis that imposed an abrupt and unprecedented impact on college students, as universities were closed with little warning. Paired with the challenges associated with physical distancing (e.g. economic stress, job loss, food insecurity, housing challenges) and the simultaneous need to balance continued and new academic demands, […]
  Kaitlin E Bountress
• Drinking cultures and socioeconomic risk factors for alcohol and drug use disorders among first- and second-generation immigrants: A longitudinal analysis of Swedish population data July 3, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: Among immigrants in Sweden, second-generation immigrants are at increased risk of developing alcohol and drug use disorders, particularly if they have lower SES. Policy and community attention to these high-risk subgroups in immigrant communities is warranted.
  Won Kim Cook
• Are Different Individuals Sensitive to Different Environments? Individual Differences in Sensitivity to the Effects of the Parent, Peer and School Environment on Externalizing Behavior and its Genetic and Environmental Etiology July 1, 2021
  Externalizing behavior is substantially affected by genetic effects, which are moderated by environmental exposures. However, little is known about whether these moderation effects differ depending on individual characteristics, and whether moderation of environmental effects generalizes across different environmental domains. With a large sample (N = 1,441 individuals) of early adolescent twins (ages 11 and 13), […]
  Noam Markovitch
• Identifying a novel biological mechanism for alcohol addiction associated with circRNA networks acting as potential miRNA sponges June 24, 2021
  Our lab and others have shown that chronic alcohol use leads to gene and miRNA expression changes across the mesocorticolimbic (MCL) system. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that form closed-loop structures and are reported to alter gene expression through miRNA sequestration, thus providing a potentially novel neurobiological mechanism for the development of alcohol dependence […]
  Eric Vornholt
• Alcohol use disorder and non-fatal suicide attempt: findings from a Swedish National Cohort Study June 23, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: In Sweden, alcohol use disorder appears to be an important predictor of suicide attempt even in the context of other psychiatric disorders. The observed association is likely the result of features that jointly impact risk of alcohol use disorder and suicide attempts (genetic liability, psychiatric illness, and childhood stressors) and a potentially causal pathway, […]
  Alexis C Edwards
• Major depressive symptoms and escalation of drinking among new drinkers in the United States: Variations across sex and age groups June 19, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: The relationships linking major depressive symptoms and the transition from drinking to first heavy drinking episode vary across age, sex, and depressive symptoms.
  Hui G Cheng
• Pediatric anxiety associated with altered facial emotion recognition June 19, 2021
  Multiple psychiatric disorders are associated with difficulties in facial emotion recognition. However, generalized anxiety disorder may be associated with more accurate recognition of others' emotional expressions, particularly expressions of happiness and fear, which index safety and threat. Children aged 9-14 from a community sample (N = 601) completed a facial emotion labeling task. Children's symptoms […]
  Lance M Rappaport
• Potential causal effect of posttraumatic stress disorder on alcohol use disorder and alcohol consumption in individuals of European descent: A Mendelian Randomization Study June 13, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: These findings are consistent with the self-medication model, in which individuals misuse alcohol to cope with aversive trauma-related symptoms. These findings extend latent analysis and molecular findings of shared and correlated risk between PTSD and alcohol phenotypes. Given the health behaviors associated with these phenotypes, these findings are important in that they suggest groups […]
  Kaitlin E Bountress
• Sex-Dependent Shared and Nonshared Genetic Architecture Across Mood and Psychotic Disorders June 8, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: In the largest genome-wide G×S analysis of mood and psychotic disorders to date, there was substantial genetic overlap between the sexes. However, significant sex-dependent effects were enriched for genes related to neuronal development and immune and vascular functions across and within SCZ, BIP, and MDD at the variant, gene, and pathway levels.
  Gabriëlla A M Blokland
• Baseline brain function in the preadolescents of the ABCD Study June 8, 2021
  The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study^(®) is a 10-year longitudinal study of children recruited at ages 9 and 10. A battery of neuroimaging tasks are administered biennially to track neurodevelopment and identify individual differences in brain function. This study reports activation patterns from functional MRI (fMRI) tasks completed at baseline, which were designed to […]
  B Chaarani
• Mediational Pathways From Genetic Risk to Alcohol Use Disorder in Swedish Men and Women June 8, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: Our models concurred in showing that the strongest mediational pathway for genetic risk to AUD includes externalizing symptoms and disorders, which in turn predict further key downstream risk factors. Pathways through lower EA and IPP had smaller effects. IPP had mixed effects (partly predisposing and partly protective) on downstream risk factors. The largest sex […]
  Kenneth S Kendler
• Early expressions of psychopathology and risk associated with trans-diagnostic transition to mood and psychotic disorders in adolescents and young adults June 4, 2021
  CONCLUSIONS: The findings need replication in independent cohorts. However, the use of CHAID might provide a means of identifying specific subsets of trans-diagnostic symptoms representing clinical phenotypes that predict transition to caseness in individuals at risk of onset of major mental disorders.
  Jan Scott