Genetic and environmental influences on conduct and antisocial personality problems in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood

Laura W Wesseldijk, Meike Bartels, Jacqueline M Vink, Catharina E M van Beijsterveldt, Lannie Ligthart, Dorret I Boomsma, Christel M Middeldorp

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Conduct problems in children and adolescents can predict antisocial personality disorder and related problems, such as crime and conviction. We sought an explanation for such predictions by performing a genetic longitudinal analysis. We estimated the effects of genetic, shared environmental, and unique environmental factors on variation in conduct problems measured at childhood and adolescence and antisocial personality problems measured at adulthood and on the covariation across ages. We also tested whether these estimates differed by sex. Longitudinal data were collected in the Netherlands Twin Register over a period of 27 years. Age appropriate and comparable measures of conduct and antisocial personality problems, assessed with the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, were available for 9783 9-10-year-old, 6839 13-18-year-old, and 7909 19-65-year-old twin pairs, respectively; 5114 twins have two or more assessments. At all ages, men scored higher than women. There were no sex differences in the estimates of the genetic and environmental influences. During childhood, genetic and environmental factors shared by children in families explained 43 and 44% of the variance of conduct problems, with the remaining variance due to unique environment. During adolescence and adulthood, genetic and unique environmental factors equally explained the variation. Longitudinal correlations across age varied between 0.20 and 0.38 and were mainly due to stable genetic factors. We conclude that shared environment is mainly of importance during childhood, while genetic factors contribute to variation in conduct and antisocial personality problems at all ages, and also underlie its stability over age.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1123-1132
Number of pages10
JournalEuropean Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Volume27
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2018

Funding

Funding We acknowledge grants from NWO: Twin-family database for behavior genetics and genomics studies (480-04-004); “Spino-zapremie” (NWO/SPI 56-464-14192; “Genetic and Family influences on Adolescent psychopathology and Wellness” (NWO 463-06-001); “A twin-sib study of adolescent wellness” (NWO-VENI 451-04-034); ZonMW “Genetic influences on stability and change in psychopathology from childhood to young adulthood” (912-10-020), European Research Council (284167), and from the European Union Seventh Framework Program “Aggression in Children: unraveling gene–environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies” (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement No. 602768.

FundersFunder number
European Union Seventh Framework Program
FP7/2007602768
European Research Council284167
ZonMw912-10-020

    Keywords

    • Journal Article

    Cohort Studies

    • Netherlands Twin Register (NTR)

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