Publications by authors named "Nudel R"
Background: It is known that impairments in linguistic ability and motor function tend to co-occur in children, and that children from families with parental mental illness such as schizophrenia tend to perform poorly in both domains, but the exact nature of these links has not yet been fully elucidated.
Design: In this study, we leveraged the first wave of the Danish High Risk and Resilience Study (VIA 7), which includes both genetic data and measures covering multiple developmental domains. The VIA 7 cohort comprises 522 7-year-old children born to parents with schizophrenia (N = 202), bipolar disorder (N = 120) or neither (N = 200).
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder primarily affecting language in the absence of a known biomedical condition, which may have a large impact on a person's life and mental health. Family-based studies indicate a strong genetic component in DLD, but genetic studies of DLD are scarce. In this study we estimated the heritability of DLD and its genetic correlations with related disorders and traits in sample of >25,000 individuals from the Danish Blood Donor Study for whom we had both genotype data and questionnaire data on language disorder and language support.
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- - ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder often identified in childhood, with both genetic and environmental risk factors influencing its development, including maternal infections during pregnancy.
- - A study measuring immune responses to various microorganisms in newborns found a significant association between higher antibody levels against cytomegalovirus (CMV) and mycoplasma with later ADHD diagnosis.
- - There is a suggested dose-response relationship indicating that increased immune system activation before or at birth may elevate the risk of ADHD, highlighting the need for healthy pregnancy practices to minimize infection risks.
Article Synopsis
- Twin studies have indicated that social responsiveness has moderate to high heritability, but there is a lack of research using parent-child data in this area.
- The study, involving families with a parent who has schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, assessed social responsiveness using the SRS-2 and found varied heritability estimates depending on whether ratings were provided by caregivers or teachers.
- The findings suggest that while social responsiveness is heritable, estimates can be influenced by the relationship between the rater and the child, as well as the family's mental health background, impacting clinical practices and future research.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the association between circulating levels of the astrocytic marker S100B and the risk of various neuropsychiatric disorders, using two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR).
- The results indicate that higher S100B levels measured soon after birth may causally increase the risk of major depressive disorder (MDD), while increased levels in older adults are linked to bipolar disorder (BIP).
- No significant causal links were found for other disorders like schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's, suggesting a nuanced relationship that could impact diagnosing and managing mood disorders.
Article Synopsis
- - The study investigates the relationship between infection load (the number of specific infections someone has) and various psychiatric disorders, finding a notable connection that suggests a higher infection load may increase the risk of conditions like ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia.
- - Researchers discovered a small yet significant heritable component to infection load, indicating a genetic predisposition, and identified a strong genetic correlation between infection load and overall psychiatric diagnoses.
- - The genome-wide association study revealed 138 potential links between infection load and psychiatric disorders, emphasizing that the cumulative effect of infections could influence mental health, which goes beyond the impact of individual infections alone.
Article Synopsis
- Developmental language disorder (DLD) affects language abilities and has a significant impact on daily functioning, without being linked to other medical conditions, and is often overlooked even by healthcare professionals.
- In a large study involving over 46,000 participants, DLD prevalence was found to be between 3.36%-3.70% based on self-reports, significantly higher than the 0.04% found in hospital records, highlighting a serious issue of underdiagnosis.
- The research also revealed a connection between DLD and various difficulties in reading and learning, as well as poorer mental and physical health, indicating long-term implications, while genetic analysis suggested greater complexity in the disorder's hereditary factors.
Many psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders are known to be heritable, but studies trying to elucidate the genetic architecture of such traits often lag behind studies of somatic traits and diseases. The reasons as to why relatively few genome-wide significant associations have been reported for such traits have to do with the sample sizes needed for the detection of small effects, the difficulty in defining and characterizing the phenotypes, partially due to overlaps in affected underlying domains (which is especially true for cognitive phenotypes), and the complex genetic architectures of the phenotypes, which are not wholly captured in traditional case-control GWAS designs. We aimed to tackle the last two issues by performing GWASs of eight quantitative neurocognitive, motor, social-cognitive and social-behavioral traits, which may be considered endophenotypes for a variety of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions, and for which we employed models capturing both general genetic association and parent-of-origin effects, in a family-based sample comprising 402 children and their parents (mostly family trios).
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- * Utilizing a large Danish sample (65,534 individuals), researchers conducted statistical analyses to link certain genetic markers (HLA alleles) to 30 different AIIDs and assessed their connection to psychiatric disorders.
- * Results revealed significant associations between specific AIIDs and psychiatric diagnoses, as well as numerous genetic links between HLA alleles and these diseases, underscoring the intertwined nature of autoimmune conditions and mental health.
Background: Psychiatric disorders are highly polygenic and show patterns of partner resemblance. Partner resemblance has direct population-level genetic implications if it is caused by assortative mating, but not if it is caused by convergence or social homogamy. Using genetics may help distinguish these different mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a group of neurodevelopmental disorders which include deficits in behavior, social interaction and communication. ASD has a complex genetic architecture, and it is also influenced by certain environmental exposures. Both types of predisposing factors may be related to immunological mechanisms, involving, for example, immune system genes and infections.
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- Current psychiatric diagnoses rely heavily on subjective symptoms, highlighting a need for improved diagnostic methods.
- A deep learning approach analyzed data from over 19,600 patients with depression and schizophrenia, creating unique clusters based on various factors like disorder severity and genetics.
- The predictive accuracy of these clustered groups was significant, with areas under the curve (AUCs) ranging from 0.54 to 0.86, demonstrating the effectiveness of data-driven subgrouping in enhancing psychiatric treatment.
The Danish High-Risk and Resilience Study-VIA 15 - A Study Protocol for the Third Clinical Assessment of a Cohort of 522 Children Born to Parents Diagnosed With Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder and Population-Based Controls.
Front Psychiatry
April 2022
Article Synopsis
- Research shows that children of parents with severe mental illness, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are at a higher risk for developing mental health issues and negative life outcomes.
- The Danish High-Risk and Resilience Study, which began in 2012, follows 522 children (with varying parental mental health backgrounds) through comprehensive assessments at ages 7, 11, and now 15, focusing on numerous factors affecting their development.
- The study utilizes various methods, including brain scans and assessments of psychological and social factors, to analyze how these children are affected by their home environments and parental mental health.
Article Synopsis
- Recent studies indicate a possible link between infections and the development of mental disorders, yet the genetic aspects of this relationship are not well understood.
- A large Danish study was conducted to explore the genetic correlation between infections and various mental disorders, using polygenic risk scores to analyze their connections.
- Results showed significant genetic overlaps for disorders like schizophrenia and ADHD with infections, but with only a modest predictive ability, suggesting infections contribute minimally to the genetic risk of these mental health issues.
Background: Studies of neurocognitive heterogeneity in young children at familial high-risk of bipolar disorder (FHR-BP) or schizophrenia (FHR-SZ) are important to investigate inter-individual neurocognitive differences. We aimed to identify neurocognitive subgroups, describe prevalence of FHR-BP or FHR-SZ children herein, and examine risk ratios (RR) compared with controls.
Methods: In a population-based cohort of 514 7-year-old children (197 FHR-SZ, 118 FHR-BP, and 199 matched controls) we used hierarchical cluster analyses to identify subgroups across 14 neurocognitive indices.
Article Synopsis
- - Children with a family history of schizophrenia (FHR-SZ) or bipolar disorder (FHR-BP) show significant variations in early signs of severe mental illness, prompting a study to analyze these precursors and their distribution.
- - In the study involving 514 seven-year-old children, researchers identified four distinct groups based on their neurocognitive and emotional functioning, noting a "broadly affected" group that was significantly more prevalent among FHR-SZ and FHR-BP children compared to control children.
- - The findings suggest that approximately half of the FHR children are not affected, while the other half require targeted support, emphasizing the need for tailored interventions for those identified with early developmental challenges.
Background: Language plays a major role in human behavior. For this reason, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders in which linguistic ability is impaired could have a big impact on the individual's social interaction and general wellbeing. Such disorders tend to have a strong genetic component, but most past studies examined mostly the linguistic overlaps across these disorders; investigations into their genetic overlaps are limited.
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- Infections are a significant global health issue, influenced both by external pathogens and genetic factors in hosts, particularly HLA alleles.
- A comprehensive study analyzed the relationship between various HLA genes and 13 types of severe infections, while considering connections to psychiatric and autoimmune diseases.
- Findings indicated weak associations between specific HLA alleles and certain viral infections and sepsis, suggesting that classical HLA alleles have a limited impact on the development of severe infections.
Circulating inflammatory markers are essential to human health and disease, and they are often dysregulated or malfunctioning in cancers as well as in cardiovascular, metabolic, immunologic and neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the genetic contribution to the physiological variation of levels of circulating inflammatory markers is largely unknown. Here we report the results of a genome-wide genetic study of blood concentration of ten cytokines, including the hitherto unexplored calcium-binding protein (S100B).
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- - The study investigates the genetic factors affecting receptive language abilities in children, emphasizing the importance of including parent-of-origin effects when analyzing genetic data.
- - It reveals a significant paternal effect on language scores linked to a specific SNP (rs11787922) on chromosome 9q21.31, where the T allele was shown to lower language scores significantly.
- - This research represents the first genome-wide significant association specifically for receptive language skills, encouraging further exploration of parental genetic influences on cognitive traits.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the genetic links between autoimmune diseases and mental disorders, addressing the gap in previous genetic research on their co-occurrence.
- Analysis of 64,039 Danish individuals revealed a significant bidirectional association, indicating that having one type of disorder increases the risk of developing the other.
- Genetic studies identified 12 specific loci on chromosome 6 that are linked to autoimmune diseases, suggesting potential new candidate genes involved in these conditions.
Article Synopsis
- Gastrointestinal infections can be severe and are linked to mental health issues, yet the genetic factors influencing this susceptibility are not well understood.
- A study using data from 65,534 Danish individuals examined genetic variations that affect risk for gastrointestinal infections and found significant associations with various mental disorders, including ADHD and depression.
- The research identified a specific genetic locus related to the ABO blood group, linking a risk allele to a higher likelihood of gastrointestinal infections, emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary approaches in genetics and medicine.