Publications by authors named "Alexandra Havdahl"

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  • Longitudinal cohort studies are crucial for understanding how various factors impact health by tracking participants over time, but maintaining participant engagement over decades is challenging.
  • This study examined participant engagement and involvement (PEI) practices in different cohort studies across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, using interviews to gather insights on recruitment, consent, communication, and data collection.
  • Findings revealed diverse recruitment strategies, a shift towards digital data collection methods, and attempts to involve participants in decision-making through advisory panels, although success varied by age and socio-economic status.
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  • A study examined eating problems among adolescents during the pandemic compared to before, using data from 22,706 14-16-year-olds over six years.
  • Results indicated that while all adolescents showed an increase in eating problems over time, the pandemic uniquely affected girls, who reported higher levels of dieting and body dissatisfaction during this period.
  • The findings emphasize the need to address gender-specific issues related to eating problems and suggest that factors like screen time and mental distress may have worsened during the pandemic.
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  • Researchers analyzed genetic data from nearly 130,000 cancer patients and over 730,000 healthy controls to identify variants linked to cancer risk across 22 cancer types.
  • Four high-risk genes were found: BIK (prostate cancer), ATG12 (colorectal cancer), TG (thyroid cancer), and CMTR2 (lung cancer and melanoma).
  • Additionally, two genes, AURKB (general cancer risk) and PPP1R15A (breast cancer), were associated with decreased cancer risk, indicating potential pathways for cancer prevention strategies.
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  • Childhood and adolescence often see the emergence of mood and anxiety disorders, with overlapping genetic factors potentially influencing emotional and behavioral difficulties.
  • The study analyzed data from over 54,000 children in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort to discern how genetic predispositions (polygenic scores) relate to development patterns of these disorders.
  • Results indicated that higher genetic risk correlates with a baseline increase and accelerated progression of behavioral issues, while specific genetic profiles linked uniquely to certain emotional disorders were identified.
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  • Some studies have suggested that drinking coffee during pregnancy might affect how kids develop, but the results have been mixed.
  • This study looked at the link between mothers' and fathers' coffee consumption before and during pregnancy, and how it relates to children's development issues.
  • The findings showed a connection between moms who drank coffee and some behavioral challenges in kids, but when factors like smoking and education were considered, the link became weaker.
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Prior studies have reported associations between socioeconomic disadvantage, brain structure and mental health outcomes, but the timing of these relations is not well understood. Using prospective longitudinal data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), this preregistered study examined whether socioeconomic disadvantage related differentially to depressive symptoms (n=3012-3530) and cortical and subcortical structures (n=460-733) in emerging adults, depending on the timing of exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage. Family income in early childhood and own income measured concurrently were both significantly related to depressive symptoms in emerging adulthood.

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  • The study investigates the effects of maternal vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acid (DHA) deficiencies on neurodevelopmental traits in offspring, using a method called Mendelian randomization to establish causal relationships rather than just correlations.
  • Results showed that while higher maternal vitamin-D levels were initially linked to lower ADHD traits in children, this association disappeared when controlling for genetic factors, indicating no causal maternal influence.
  • The findings suggest that prior observational studies might have been misleading due to genetic confounding, and that genetic predispositions for autism and ADHD are related to lower levels of vitamin D and DHA in mothers.
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Importance: Limited information exists regarding the impact of pharmacotherapy in pregnancy due to ethical concerns of unintended fetal harm. Yet, maternal prescriptive drug use for chronic conditions such as hypertension is common.

Objective: To investigate potential causal relationships between perturbing maternal genetic variants influencing antihypertensive drug targets and perinatal outcomes among offspring using mendelian randomization (MR).

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  • There is increasing awareness that signs of autism can emerge beyond the first three years of life, raising questions about the impact of age at diagnosis on developmental trajectories.
  • Research using data from four birth cohorts reveals two distinct socio-emotional behavior patterns linked to the age when autism is diagnosed.
  • The study also finds that the age at diagnosis has a heritable component and is related to genetic factors, suggesting a complex relationship between autism, the timing of diagnosis, and co-occurring conditions like ADHD and mental health issues.
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  • Children of less-educated parents show higher rates of depression, anxiety, and ADHD, but it's unclear if this is a direct cause-and-effect relationship.
  • A study of nearly 41,000 Norwegian children found no strong evidence that parents' education levels independently impact these mental health traits in their children.
  • Instead, children's own genetic factors related to education were linked to mental health traits, suggesting that genetic influences play a larger role than previously thought, while also highlighting the need for studies in more diverse socioeconomic contexts.
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Importance: Prenatal diet may be causally related to autism; however, findings are inconsistent, with a limited body of research based on small sample sizes and retrospective study designs.

Objective: To investigate the associations of prenatal dietary patterns with autism diagnosis and autism-associated traits in 2 large prospective cohorts, the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study used data from MoBa and ALSPAC birth cohort studies conducted across Norway and in the Southwest of England, respectively.

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  • * A genome-wide association meta-analysis of nearly 122,000 ANX cases revealed 58 significant genetic variants and 66 related genes, with many of these findings replicated in a larger independent sample.
  • * The findings indicate a substantial genetic overlap between ANX and other conditions like depression, emphasizing GABAergic signaling as a key mechanism, thereby enhancing our understanding of the genetic basis of ANX for future research.
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Background: Autism and different neurodevelopmental conditions frequently co-occur, as do their symptoms at sub-diagnostic threshold levels. Overlapping traits and shared genetic liability are potential explanations.

Methods: In the population-based Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort study (MoBa), we leverage item-level data to explore the phenotypic factor structure and genetic architecture underlying neurodevelopmental traits at age 3 years (N = 41,708-58,630) using maternal reports on 76 items assessing children's motor and language development, social functioning, communication, attention, activity regulation, and flexibility of behaviors and interests.

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  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects about 1% of people and has a strong genetic component, but previous studies have not fully explained its genetic causes or biological mechanisms.
  • A large genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyzed data from over 53,000 OCD cases and over 2 million control participants, identifying 30 significant genetic markers related to OCD and suggesting a 6.7% heritability from SNPs.
  • The research also found 249 candidate risk genes linked to OCD, particularly in specific brain regions, and showed genetic correlations with various psychiatric disorders, laying the groundwork for further studies and potential treatments.
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Background: Adolescent self-reported psychotic experiences are associated with mental illness and could help guide prevention strategies. The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) was developed over 20 years ago. In a rapidly changing society, where new generations of adolescents are growing up in an increasingly digital world, it is crucial to ensure high reliability and validity of the questionnaire.

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Over 50% of children with a parent with severe mental illness will develop mental illness by early adulthood. However, intergenerational transmission of risk for mental illness in one's children is insufficiently considered in clinical practice, nor is it sufficiently utilised into diagnostics and care for children of ill parents. This leads to delays in diagnosing young offspring and missed opportunities for protective actions and resilience strengthening.

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Background: The timing of puberty may have an important impact on adolescent mental health. In particular, earlier age at menarche has been associated with elevated rates of depression in adolescents. Previous research suggests that this relationship may be causal, but replication and an investigation of whether this effect extends to other mental health domains is warranted.

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Low birth weight raises neonatal risks and lifelong health issues and is linked to maternal medication use during pregnancy. We examined data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study and the Medical Birth Registry of Norway, including 69,828 offspring with genotype data and 81,189 with maternal genotype data. We identified genetic risk variants in placental efflux transporters, calculated genetic scores based on alleles related to transporter activity, and assessed their interaction with prenatal use of antiseizure or antidepressant medication on offspring birth weight.

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The widespread comorbidity observed across psychiatric disorders may be the result of processes such as assortative mating, gene-environment correlation, or selection into population studies. Between-family analyses of comorbidity are subject to these sources of bias, whereas within-family analyses are not. Because of Mendelian inheritance, alleles are randomly assigned within families, conditional on parental alleles.

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Background: Adverse pregnancy outcomes (APO) may unmask or exacerbate a woman's underlying risk for coronary heart disease (CHD). We estimated associations of maternal and paternal genetically predicted liability for CHD with lifelong risk of APOs. We hypothesized that associations would be found for women, but not their male partners (negative controls).

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The aetiology of conduct problems involves a combination of genetic and environmental factors, many of which are inherently linked to parental characteristics given parents' central role in children's lives across development. It is important to disentangle to what extent links between parental heritable characteristics and children's behaviour are due to transmission of genetic risk or due to parental indirect genetic influences via the environment (i.e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Using questionnaires in research assumes that they consistently measure the same traits across different groups, but this may not always be the case.
  • In our study of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), we found that while parents of boys and girls generally responded similarly, the questionnaire indicated traits differently depending on whether the children had autism.
  • Researchers should be cautious in interpreting SCQ scores, particularly when applied to groups without autism, as these scores may not accurately reflect autism-associated traits and should instead be viewed as broader indicators of social and behavioral characteristics.
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  • Maternal diet quality, particularly fiber intake during pregnancy, may play a significant role in reducing ADHD symptoms in children.
  • A large study involving over 21,000 families found that higher maternal fiber intake was linked to lower ADHD symptom levels in offspring at ages 3, 5, and 8.
  • The research suggests that low fiber intake during pregnancy could increase the risk of ADHD symptoms in children, regardless of genetic and environmental factors.
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Background: An individual's overall burden of behavioural and emotional problems across childhood is associated with increased likelihood of later mental health conditions. However, the extent of behavioural versus emotional problems - that is, the extent to which the domains are from one another - may provide additional information about who is at risk of developing a mental health condition. Here, we seek to validate differentiation as an independent predictor of later mental health conditions, and to explore its aetiology.

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