The HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study (HBCD): NIH collaboration to understand the impacts of prenatal and early life experiences on brain development.

The human brain undergoes rapid development during the first years of life. Beginning in utero, a wide array of biological, social, and environmental factors can have lasting impacts on brain structure and function. To understand how prenatal and early life experiences alter neurodevelopmental trajectories and shape health outcomes, several NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices collaborated to support and launch the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study.

The role of fathers in child development from preconception to postnatal influences: Opportunities for the National Institutes of Health Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program.

A growing body of literature highlights the important role of paternal health and socioemotional characteristics in child development, from preconception through adolescence. Much of this research addresses the indirect effects of fathers, for instance, their influence on maternal behaviors during the prenatal period or via the relationship with their partner. However, emerging evidence also recognizes the direct role of paternal health and behavior for child health and adjustment across development.

Genetically informative analysis of the association between intimate relationship adjustment and health.

Objective: Prior research has found a positive association between the quality or adjustment of an individual's intimate relationship, such as marriage, and their physical health. However, it is possible that this association may be due, at least in part, to confounding variables (i.e.

Parental criticism and adolescent internalising symptoms: using a Children-of-Twins design with power calculations to account for genetic influence.

Background: Parental criticism is correlated with internalising symptoms in adolescent offspring. This correlation could in part reflect their genetic relatedness, if the same genes influence behaviours in both parents and offspring. We use a Children-of-Twins design to assess whether parent-reported criticism and offspring internalising symptoms remain associated after controlling for shared genes.

National Institutes of Health social and behavioral research in response to the SARS-CoV2 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been mitigated primarily using social and behavioral intervention strategies, and these strategies have social and economic impacts, as well as potential downstream health impacts that require further study. Digital and community-based interventions are being increasingly relied upon to address these health impacts and bridge the gap in health care access despite insufficient research of these interventions as a replacement for, not an adjunct to, in-person clinical care. As SARS-CoV-2 testing expands, research on encouraging uptake and appropriate interpretation of these test results is needed.

A genetically informative analysis of the association between dyadic adjustment, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms.

Background: Prior research has found a reliable and robust association between poor dyadic (e.g., marital) adjustment and depression and anxiety.

Social and behavioral science priorities for genomic translation.

This commentary highlights the essential role of the social and behavioral sciences for genomic translation, and discusses some priority research areas in this regard. The first area encompasses genetics of behavioral, social, and neurocognitive factors, and how integration of these relationships might impact the development of treatments and interventions. The second area includes the contributions that social and behavioral sciences make toward the informed translation of genomic developments.

Associations between the parent-child relationship and adolescent self-worth: a genetically informed study of twin parents and their adolescent children.

Background: Low self-worth during adolescence predicts a range of emotional and behavioural problems. As such, identifying potential sources of influence on self-worth is important. Aspects of the parent-child relationship are often associated with adolescent self-worth but to date it is unclear whether such associations may be attributable to familial confounding (e.

Understanding The Role of Mate Selection Processes in Couples' Pair-Bonding Behavior.

Couples are similar in their pair-bonding behavior, yet the reasons for this similarity are often unclear. A common explanation is phenotypic assortment, whereby individuals select partners with similar heritable characteristics. Alternatively, social homogamy, whereby individuals passively select partners with similar characteristic due to shared social backgrounds, is rarely considered.

Adolescent age moderates genetic and environmental influences on parent-adolescent positivity and negativity: Implications for genotype-environment correlation.

We examined how genotype-environment correlation processes differ as a function of adolescent age. We tested whether adolescent age moderates genetic and environmental influences on positivity and negativity in mother-adolescent and father-adolescent relationships using parallel samples of twin parents from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden and twin/sibling adolescents from the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development Study. We inferred differences in the role of passive and nonpassive genotype-environment correlation based on biometric moderation findings.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Anxiety: A Children-of-Twins Study.

Objective: The transmission of anxiety within families is well recognized, but the underlying processes are poorly understood. Twin studies of adolescent anxiety demonstrate both genetic and environmental influence, and multiple aspects of parenting are associated with offspring anxiety. To date, the children-of-twins design has not been used to evaluate the relative contributions of genetic transmission compared with direct transmission of anxiety from parents to their offspring.

Parental criticism is an environmental influence on adolescent somatic symptoms.

Previous studies have suggested that parental criticism leads to more somatic symptoms in adolescent children. However, this research has not assessed the direction of causation or whether genetic and/or environmental influences explain the association between parental criticism and adolescent somatic symptoms. As such, it is impossible to understand the mechanisms that underlie this association.

Parental knowledge is an environmental influence on adolescent externalizing.

Background: There is evidence both that parental monitoring is an environmental influence serving to diminish adolescent externalizing problems and that this association may be driven by adolescents' characteristics via genetic and/or environmental mechanisms, such that adolescents with fewer problems tell their parents more, and therefore appear to be better monitored. Without information on how parents' and children's genes and environments influence correlated parent and child behaviors, it is impossible to clarify the mechanisms underlying this association.

Method: The present study used the Extended Children of Twins model to distinguish types of gene-environment correlation and direct environmental effects underlying associations between parental knowledge and adolescent (age 11-22 years) externalizing behavior with a Swedish sample of 909 twin parents and their adolescent offspring and a US-based sample of 405 White adolescent siblings and their parents.

The observed association between maternal anxiety and adolescent asthma: children of twin design suggest familial effects.

Background: Previous studies indicate that maternal anxiety is associated with asthma in the adolescent child, but mechanisms are unclear.

Objective: To investigate the association between maternal anxiety and maternal, self- and register-based report of asthma in the adolescent child, and whether the association remains after control of familial confounding (shared environmental and genetic factors).

Method: From the Twin and Offspring Study of Sweden, 1691 mothers (1058 twins) and their adolescent child were included.

Gene-environment correlation underlying the association between parental negativity and adolescent externalizing problems.

Studies of adolescent or parent-based twins suggest that gene-environment correlation (rGE) is an important mechanism underlying parent-adolescent relationships. However, information on how parents' and children's genes and environments influence correlated parent and child behaviors is needed to distinguish types of rGE. The present study used the novel Extended Children of Twins model to distinguish types of rGE underlying associations between negative parenting and adolescent (age 11-22 years) externalizing problems with a Swedish sample of 909 twin parents and their adolescent offspring and a U.

Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene is associated with pair-bonding and social behavior.

Background: In specific vole and primate species the neuropeptide oxytocin plays a central role in the regulation of pair-bonding behavior. Here we investigate the extent to which genetic variants in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) are associated with pair-bonding and related social behaviors in humans.

Methods: We first genotyped twelve single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the TOSS (Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden) (n = 2309) and the TCHAD (Swedish Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development) (n = 1240), comprising measures of self-reported pair-bonding behavior.

The role of aggressive personality and family relationships in explaining family conflict.

This study investigated whether genetic and environmental influences on global family conflict are explained by parents' personality, marital quality, and negative parenting. The sample comprised 876 same-sex pairs of twins, their spouses, and one adolescent child per twin from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden. Genetic influences on aggressive personality were correlated with genetic influences on global family conflict.

Parental criticism and externalizing behavior problems in adolescents: the role of environment and genotype-environment correlation.

Genetic factors are important for the association between parental negativity and child problem behavior, but it is not clear whether this is due to passive or evocative genotype-environment correlation (rGE). In this study, we applied the extended children-of-twins model to directly examine the presence of passive and evocative rGE as well as direct environmental effects in the association between parental criticism and adolescent externalizing problem behavior. The cross-sectional data come from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden (N = 909 pairs of adult twins) and from the Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development (N = 915 pairs of twin children).

A genetically informed study of associations between family functioning and child psychosocial adjustment.

Research has documented associations between family functioning and offspring psychosocial adjustment, but questions remain regarding whether these associations are partly due to confounding genetic factors and other environmental factors. The current study used a genetically informed approach, the Children of Twins design, to explore the associations between family functioning (family conflict, marital quality, and agreement about parenting) and offspring psychopathology. Participants were 867 twin pairs (388 monozygotic; 479 dizygotic) from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden, their spouses, and children (51.

Genetic and environmental influences on global family conflict.

This study examined genetic and environmental influences on global family conflict. The sample comprised 872 same-sex pairs of twin parents, their spouses/partners, and one adolescent child per twin from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden. The twins, spouses, and child each reported on the degree of family conflict, and there was significant agreement among the family members' ratings.

Understanding the role of personality in explaining associations between marital quality and parenting.

Analyses assessed the degrees to which personality accounts for associations between marital quality and parenting and mediates genetic contributions to these relationships. Participants included 318 male and 544 female same-sex twin pairs from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden. All twins completed self-report measures of marital quality and personality (anxiousness, aggression, sociability).

Testing different types of genotype-environment correlation: an extended children-of-twins model.

This study presents an extended children-of-twins model, which allowed the authors to test the direction of the association between parenting and child adjustment. Three mechanisms were examined: direct phenotypic influence of parenting on child behavior (controlling for both parental and child genotype), passive genotype-environment correlation, and evocative genotype-environment correlation. This model was tested with Monte Carlo simulations.