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Using polygenic scores to study the gene-environment interplay of children’s exposure to violence and their externalising symptoms
- Gabriel Allegret
- Franck Ramus
- Sophie von Stumm
- ss2600@york.ac.uk
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Description: The goal of this paper is to investigate the gene-environment interplay between children’s genetic liability for externalising behaviour problems and early exposure to violence. Early exposure to violence has been established as a risk factor for pervasive deleterious effects on a wide range of developmental domains including the development of externalising problems. Children who experience violence display higher rates of impulsivity (Rohrbeck & Twentyman,1986), antisocial development (Patterson et al., 1992) and higher externalising behaviours (Hart, Gunnar, & Cicchetti, 1995). Externalising behaviours generally refers to behavioural problems that are manifested in children's outward behaviour and reflect the child negatively acting on their external environment (Liu, 2004). They are characterised by pervasive difficulties with self-regulation and social norms and can have far-reaching consequences such as illness, impecunity, and criminal involvement in adulthood (Tanksley et al., 2023). These disorders display some forms of comorbidity that might be explained by common genetic factors and exacerbated by various risk factors as parental conflict (Harold et al., 2013; Nederhof, Belsky, Ormel, & Oldehinkel, 2012), family dysfunction (Button et al., 2005), SES (Tuvblad et al., 2006), peer deviance (Kendler, Gardner, & Dick, 2011) and early care and education (Lipscomb et al., 2014). Generally, children who were exposed to violence show increased rate of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorde ; Ouyang et al, 2008), ODD (oppositional defiant disorder ; Pelcovitz et al., 2000), delinquency (Smith et al., 2005), ASPD (antisocial personality disorder ; Luntz & Widom, 1994), and SUDs (substance use disorders ; Harrison, et al., 1997; Rogosch et al., 2010). However, only a few studies have precisely investigated the specific contribution of overall exposure to violence to externalising behaviours in a gene-environment interplay approach. behavioural genetic approaches are key to analyse the genetic differences that contribute to externalizing behaviour and how they interact with environmental risk-factors. The present study aims to analyse to what extent these environmental and genetic factors contribute to the development of externalising phenotypes.