Abstract
BACKGROUND: Aggression in children has genetic and environmental causes. Studies of aggression can pool existing datasets to include more complex models of social effects. Such analyses require large datasets with harmonized outcome measures. Here, we made use of a reference panel for phenotype data to harmonize multiple aggression measures in school-aged children to jointly analyze data from five large twin cohorts.
METHODS: Individual level aggression data on 86,559 children (42,468 twin pairs) were available in five European twin cohorts measured by different instruments. A phenotypic reference panel was collected which enabled a model-based phenotype harmonization approach. A bi-factor integration model in the integrative data analysis framework was developed to model aggression across studies while adjusting for rater, age, and sex. Finally, harmonized aggression scores were analyzed to estimate contributions of genes, environment, and social interaction to aggression. The large sample size allowed adequate power to test for sibling interaction effects, with unique dynamics permitted for opposite-sex twins.
RESULTS: The best-fitting model found a high level of overall heritability of aggression (~60%). Different heritability rates of aggression across sex were marginally significant, with heritability estimates in boys of ~64% and ~58% in girls. Sibling interaction effects were only significant in the opposite-sex twin pairs: the interaction effect of males on their female co-twin differed from the effect of females on their male co-twin. An aggressive female had a positive effect on male co-twin aggression, whereas more aggression in males had a negative influence on a female co-twin.
CONCLUSIONS: Opposite-sex twins displayed unique social dynamics of aggressive behaviors in a joint analysis of a large, multinational dataset. The integrative data analysis framework, applied in combination with a reference panel, has the potential to elucidate broad, generalizable results in the investigation of common psychological traits in children.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 807-817 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| Early online date | 16 Jan 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2020 |
Bibliographical note
© 2020 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.Funding
This work was supported by FP7‐602768 ‘ACTION: Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene‐environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies’ from the European Commission/European Union Seventh Framework Program. G.L. was in addition supported by DA‐018673 awarded by the National Institutes of Health: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Data were previously collected under approval of the participating studies' original governing boards/Institutional Review Boards. All data used in the current analyses were collected under protocols that have been approved by the appropriate ethics committees, including informed consent of subjects, and studies were performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest. This work was supported by FP7-602768 ?ACTION: Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies? from the European Commission/European Union Seventh Framework Program. G.L. was in addition supported by DA-018673 awarded by the National Institutes of Health: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Data were previously collected under approval of the participating studies' original governing boards/Institutional Review Boards. All data used in the current analyses were collected under protocols that have been approved by the appropriate ethics committees, including informed consent of subjects, and studies were performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.Key points Overt aggression is a moderately heritable problem behavior in children. Heritability estimates vary across different studies based on different European twin registers. Integrative data analysis was used to formulate a model-based harmonization approach for creating a comparable aggression score across multiple cohorts in the ACTION Consortium. Twin models of harmonized aggression resulted in relatively high estimates of heritability of aggression (60% overall), with marginally significant sex differences (64% for males, 58% for females). In addition, a unique sibling contrast dynamic was detected in opposite-sex twin pairs. The large sample size from combining studies provided statistical power to detect these sex differences. Integrative data analysis provides a framework for cross-study collaboration with difficult-to-measure psychological outcomes. Overt aggression is a moderately heritable problem behavior in children. Heritability estimates vary across different studies based on different European twin registers. Integrative data analysis was used to formulate a model-based harmonization approach for creating a comparable aggression score across multiple cohorts in the ACTION Consortium. Twin models of harmonized aggression resulted in relatively high estimates of heritability of aggression (60% overall), with marginally significant sex differences (64% for males, 58% for females). In addition, a unique sibling contrast dynamic was detected in opposite-sex twin pairs. The large sample size from combining studies provided statistical power to detect these sex differences. Integrative data analysis provides a framework for cross-study collaboration with difficult-to-measure psychological outcomes.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| European Commission/European Union Seventh Framework Program | DA‐018673 |
| FP7-602768 ? | |
| FP7‐602768 | |
| National Institutes of Health | |
| National Institute on Drug Abuse | R01DA018673 |
Keywords
- Aggression
- developmental psychopathology
- integrative data analysis
- phenotype reference panel
- twin modeling
Cohort Studies
- Netherlands Twin Register (NTR)
