Causal inference methods for intergenerational research using observational data.

Identifying early causal factors leading to the development of poor mental health and behavioral outcomes is essential to design efficient preventive interventions. The substantial associations observed between parental risk factors (e.g.

Do environmental effects indexed by parental genetic variation influence common psychiatric symptoms in childhood?

Parental genes may indirectly influence offspring psychiatric outcomes through the environment that parents create for their children. These indirect genetic effects, also known as genetic nurture, could explain individual differences in common internalising and externalising psychiatric symptoms during childhood. Advanced statistical genetic methods leverage data from families to estimate the overall contribution of parental genetic nurture effects.

Antidepressant and antipsychotic treatment of Psychotic Major Depression in a British mental healthcare setting.

Background: Evidence from treatment trials shows that the most effective pharmacological treatment for Psychotic Major Depression (PMD) is combined antidepressant and antipsychotic pharmacotherapy.

Aim: This study investigates the use of antidepressant and antipsychotic treatment for PMD in clinical practice and examines how treatment profiles correlate with demographic and clinical symptoms.

Method: Anonymised electronic health records of 2,837 individuals with PMD were followed up for 12-months post-diagnosis in a historic open cohort design.

Parental characteristics and offspring mental health and related outcomes: a systematic review of genetically informative literature.

Various parental characteristics, including psychiatric disorders and parenting behaviours, are associated with offspring mental health and related outcomes in observational studies. The application of genetically informative designs is crucial to disentangle the role of genetic and environmental factors (as well as gene-environment correlation) underlying these observations, as parents provide not only the rearing environment but also transmit 50% of their genes to their offspring. This article first provides an overview of behavioural genetics, matched-pair, and molecular genetics designs that can be applied to investigate parent-offspring associations, whilst modelling or accounting for genetic effects.

Genetic contributions to anxiety disorders: where we are and where we are heading.

Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders worldwide. They often onset early in life, with symptoms and consequences that can persist for decades. This makes anxiety disorders some of the most debilitating and costly disorders of our time.

Overview of CAPICE-Childhood and Adolescence Psychopathology: unravelling the complex etiology by a large Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Europe-an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Training Network.

The Roadmap for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research in Europe (ROAMER) identified child and adolescent mental illness as a priority area for research. CAPICE (Childhood and Adolescence Psychopathology: unravelling the complex etiology by a large Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Europe) is a European Union (EU) funded training network aimed at investigating the causes of individual differences in common childhood and adolescent psychopathology, especially depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. CAPICE brings together eight birth and childhood cohorts as well as other cohorts from the EArly Genetics and Life course Epidemiology (EAGLE) consortium, including twin cohorts, with unique longitudinal data on environmental exposures and mental health problems, and genetic data on participants.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Maternal, Paternal, and Offspring Genotypes: Trio-GCTA.

Indirect genetic effects from relatives may result in misleading quantifications of heritability, but can also be of interest in their own right. In this paper we propose Trio-GCTA, a model for separating direct and indirect genetic effects when genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism data have been collected from parent-offspring trios. The model is applicable to phenotypes obtained from any of the family members.

Maternal and paternal effects on offspring internalizing problems: Results from genetic and family-based analyses.

It is unclear to what extent parental influences on the development of internalizing problems in offspring are explained by indirect genetic effects, reflected in the environment provided by the parent, in addition to the genes transmitted from parent to child. In this study, these effects were investigated using two innovative methods in a large birth cohort. Using maternal-effects genome complex trait analysis (M-GCTA), the effects of offspring genotype, maternal or paternal genotypes, and their covariance on offspring internalizing problems were estimated in 3,801 mother-father-child genotyped trios.