@article {274, title = {Aggressive behaviour in childhood and adolescence: the role of smoking during pregnancy, evidence from four twin cohorts in the EU-ACTION consortium}, journal = {Psychological Medicine}, year = {2018}, pages = {1{\textendash}9}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND:

Maternal smoking during pregnancy (MSDP) has been linked to offspring\&$\#$39;s externalizing problems. It has been argued that socio-demographic factors (e.g. maternal age and education), co-occurring environmental risk factors, or pleiotropic genetic effects may account for the association between MSDP and later outcomes. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of the association between MSDP and a single harmonized component of externalizing: aggressive behaviour, measured throughout childhood and adolescence.

METHODS:

Data came from four prospective twin cohorts - Twins Early Development Study, Netherlands Twin Register, Childhood and Adolescent Twin Study of Sweden, and FinnTwin12 study - who collaborate in the EU-ACTION consortium. Data from 30 708 unrelated individuals were analysed. Based on item level data, a harmonized measure of aggression was created at ages 9-10; 12; 14-15 and 16-18.

RESULTS:

MSDP predicted aggression in childhood and adolescence. A meta-analysis across the four samples found the independent effect of MSDP to be 0.4\% (r = 0.066), this remained consistent when analyses were performed separately by sex. All other perinatal factors combined explained 1.1\% of the variance in aggression across all ages and samples (r = 0.112). Paternal smoking and aggressive parenting strategies did not account for the MSDP-aggression association, consistent with the hypothesis of a small direct link between MSDP and aggression.

CONCLUSIONS:

Perinatal factors, including MSDP, account for a small portion of the variance in aggression in childhood and adolescence. Later experiences may play a greater role in shaping adolescents\&$\#$39; aggressive behaviour.

}, doi = {10.1017/S0033291718001344}, author = {Malanchini, Margherita and Emily Smith-Woolley and Ayorech, Ziada and Kaili Rimfeld and Eva Krapohl and Vuoksimaa, Eero and Korhonen, Tellervo and Meike Bartels and van Beijsterveldt, Toos C.E.M. and Richard J. Rose and et al.} } @article {279, title = {The genetics of university success}, volume = {8}, year = {2018}, month = {2018/10/18}, pages = {14579}, abstract = {

University success, which includes enrolment in and achievement at university, as well as quality of the university, have all been linked to later earnings, health and wellbeing. However, little is known about the causes and correlates of differences in university-level outcomes. Capitalizing on both quantitative and molecular genetic data, we perform the first genetically sensitive investigation of university success with a UK-representative sample of 3,000 genotyped individuals and 3,000 twin pairs. Twin analyses indicate substantial additive genetic influence on university entrance exam achievement (57\%), university enrolment (51\%), university quality (57\%) and university achievement (46\%). We find that environmental effects tend to be non-shared, although the shared environment is substantial for university enrolment. Furthermore, using multivariate twin analysis, we show moderate to high genetic correlations between university success variables (0.27\–0.76). Analyses using DNA alone also support genetic influence on university success. Indeed, a genome-wide polygenic score, derived from a 2016 genome-wide association study of years of education, predicts up to 5\% of the variance in each university success variable. These findings suggest young adults select and modify their educational experiences in part based on their genetic propensities and highlight the potential for DNA-based predictions of real-world outcomes, which will continue to increase in predictive power.

}, isbn = {2045-2322}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32621-w}, author = {Emily Smith-Woolley and Ayorech, Ziada and Philip S. Dale and Sophie von Stumm and Robert Plomin} } @article {202, title = {Personalized Media: A Genetically Informative Investigation of Individual Differences in Online Media Use}, journal = {PLOS ONE}, volume = {12}, year = {2017}, month = {01}, pages = {1-10}, abstract = {

Online media use has become an increasingly important behavioral domain over the past decade. However, studies into the etiology of individual differences in media use have focused primarily on pathological use. Here, for the first time, we test the genetic influences on online media use in a UK representative sample of 16 year old twins, who were assessed on time spent on educational (N = 2,585 twin pairs) and entertainment websites (N = 2,614 twin pairs), time spent gaming online (N = 2,635 twin pairs), and Facebook use (N = 4,333 twin pairs). Heritability was substantial for all forms of online media use, ranging from 34\% for educational sites to 37\% for entertainment sites and 39\% for gaming. Furthermore, genetics accounted for 24\% of the variance in Facebook use. Our results support an active model of the environment, where young people choose their online engagements in line with their genetic propensities.

}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0168895}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168895}, author = {Ayorech, Ziada and Sophie von Stumm and Haworth, Claire M. A. and Davis, Oliver S. P. and Robert Plomin} } @article {196, title = {Publication Trends Over 55 Years of Behavioral Genetic Research}, journal = {Behavior Genetics}, volume = {46}, year = {2016}, month = {Sep}, pages = {603{\textendash}607}, abstract = {

We document the growth in published papers on behavioral genetics for 5-year intervals from 1960 through 2014. We used 1861 papers published in Behavior Genetics to train our search strategy which, when applied to Ovid PsychINFO, selected more than 45,000 publications. Five trends stand out: (1) the number of behavioral genetic publications has grown enormously; nearly 20,000 papers were published in 2010\–2014. (2) The number of human quantitative genetic (QG) publications (e.g., twin and adoption studies) has steadily increased with more than 3000 papers published in 2010\–2014. (3) The number of human molecular genetic (MG) publications increased substantially from about 2000 in 2000\–2004 to 5000 in 2005\–2009 to 9000 in 2010\–2014. (4) Nonhuman publications yielded similar trends. (5) Although there has been exponential growth in MG publications, both human and nonhuman QG publications continue to grow. A searchable resource of this corpus of behavioral genetic papers is freely available online at http://www.teds.ac.uk/public{\_}datasets.html and will be updated annually.

}, issn = {1573-3297}, doi = {10.1007/s10519-016-9786-2}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-016-9786-2}, author = {Ayorech, Ziada and Saskia Selzam and Emily Smith-Woolley and Knopik, Valerie S. and Neiderhiser, Jenae M. and John C DeFries and Robert Plomin} }