Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
17378921
TITLE
Spousal concordance for alcohol dependence: evidence for assortative mating or spousal interaction effects?
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND NlmCategory: BACKGROUND
Alcohol dependence (AD) is among the most common psychiatric disorders, and impacts the health and well-being of problem drinkers, their family members, and society as a whole. Although previous research has consistently indicated that genetic factors contribute to variance in risk for AD, little attention has been paid to nonrandom mating for AD. When assortative mating occurs for a heritable trait, spouses are genetically correlated and offspring are at increased risk of receiving high-risk genes from both parents. The primary goal of the present analyses is to test hypotheses about the source(s) and magnitude of spousal associations for AD using a twin-spouse design.
METHODS NlmCategory: METHODS
DSM-IV AD (without the clustering criterion) was assessed via telephone interview for 5,974 twin members of an older cohort of the Australian Twin Register (born 1902-1964) and 3,814 spouses of the twins. Quantitative genetic modeling was used to determine the extent to which variability in risk for AD was influenced by genetic factors, the extent of spousal association for AD, and whether the association was attributable to assortative mating, reciprocal spousal interaction, or both processes.
RESULTS NlmCategory: RESULTS
Genetic factors explained 49% of the variance in risk for AD. There was no evidence of gender differences in the spousal interaction effect, the degree of rater bias, or the association between the twin's report of spouse AD and the spouse's AD phenotype. Either the assortative mating parameter or the spousal interaction parameter could be removed from the model without a significant decrement in fit, but both could not be dropped simultaneously, suggesting a lack of power to differentiate between these 2 causes of spousal correlation. When both effects were included in the model, the spousal correlation was 0.29, the assortative mating coefficient was 0.45 (i.e., "like marries like"), and the reciprocal spousal interaction coefficient was -0.10 (i.e., after controlling for assortative mating, the additional impact of spousal interactions is slightly protective).
CONCLUSIONS NlmCategory: CONCLUSIONS
These analyses provide evidence of significant spousal associations for AD, with assortative mating increasing spouse similarity and spousal interaction effects decreasing it after controlling for assortative mating. Although the genetic impact is modest, assortative mating results in an increased proportion of offspring exposed to 2 alcoholic parents and the associated detrimental environmental sequelae, and increases the likelihood of offspring inheriting high-risk genes from both parents.
DATE PUBLISHED
2007 May
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
aheadofprint 2007/03/22
pubmed 2007/03/24 09:00
medline 2007/05/23 09:00
entrez 2007/03/24 09:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Grant JD Grant Julia D JD Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. grantj@msnotes.wustl.edu
Heath AC Heath Andrew C AC
Bucholz KK Bucholz Kathleen K KK
Madden PA Madden Pamela A F PA
Agrawal A Agrawal Arpana A
Statham DJ Statham Dixie J DJ
Martin NG Martin Nicholas G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 31
ISSUE: 5
TITLE: Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research
ISOABBREVIATION: Alcohol. Clin. Exp. Res.
YEAR: 2007
MONTH: May
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0145-6008
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Alcohol Clin Exp Res
COUNTRY: England
ISSNLINKING: 0145-6008
NLMUNIQUEID: 7707242
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA00728 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA07535 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA10249 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA11998 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Alcoholism psychology
Australia psychology
Cohort Studies psychology
Education psychology
Female psychology
Humans psychology
Interviews as Topic psychology
Male psychology
Marriage psychology
Middle Aged psychology
Models, Genetic psychology
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales psychology
Religion psychology
Risk psychology
Sex Factors psychology
Spouses psychology
Twins psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's