Research reportGenetic influences on the cognitive biases associated with anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents
Section snippets
Participants
The present analyses combine data from the G1219 and G1219Twins longitudinal studies. G1219 began as the adolescent offspring of adults from a large-scale population-based study (GENESiS: Genetic–Environment Study of Emotional States in Siblings, Sham et al., 2000). Of the 9000 families contacted through GENESiS, a total of 3600 (40%) participated either in this study or another study on hyperactivity (Curran et al., 2003). The G1219Twins are a random selection of live twin births born between
Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics for all four study variables at both time points are given in Table 1. Females rated their anxiety and depression as higher than males both at time 1 (t(2599) = − 12.46, p < 0.01 for anxiety and t(2627) = − 9.57, p < 0.01 for depression) and at time 2 (t(1568) = − 9.787, p < 0.01 for anxiety and t(1589) = − 7.479, p < 0.01 for depression).
Phenotypic associations
The phenotypic correlations amongst the variables are provided in Table 2. The strongest associations in both sexes and at both times were between anxiety
Summary
In contrast to the high genetic correlations between anxiety and depression our study found only moderate genetic correlations between anxiety sensitivity and attributional style. Genetic correlations between cognitive biases were, however, higher than non-shared environmental correlations suggesting genetic rather than environmental factors drive more of the covariation between these cognitive biases.
What was notable from the univariate analysis was the degree of similarity in the genetic and
Role of funding source
The G1219 study was supported by the WT Grant Foundation, the University of London Central Research fund and a Medical Research Council Training Fellowship and Career Development Award to Thalia Eley. The G1219 study is currently supported by a research grant from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (RES-000-22-2206) and a grant from the Institute of Social Psychiatry to Alice Gregory who is currently supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. Helena Zavos is supported by a Medical
Conflict of interest
All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the families for their participation, and Sally Cartwright, Jenny Cox, Joseph Hayward, Georgina Hosang, Alessandra Iervolino, Jennifer Lau, Holan Liang, Maria Napolitano, Ben Neale, Robert Plomin, Richard Rowe, Pak Sham, Abram Sterne, Eileen Walsh, Richard Williamson and Tom Willis for their input to various stages of the project.
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