Although individual differences in reading-related skills are largely influenced by genetic variation, the molecular basis of the heritability of this phenotype is far from understood. Functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms spanning reading-candidate genes and genome-wide significant top hits were identified. By using a multiple-predictor/multiple-mediator framework, we investigated whether relationships between functional genetic variants (DYX1C1-rs3743205, DYX1C1-rs57809907, KIAA0319-rs9461045, and KIAA0319-Haplotype) and genome-wide significant top hits (rs11208009 on chromosome 1) and reading skills could be explained by reading-related cognitive and sensory endophenotypes in a sample of 328 8-year-old twins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividual differences in physical aggression (PA) are largely heritable. However, it remains unclear how genetic propensity for aggression manifests early in life and relates to school-age PA. Preschool externalizing behavior problems (EXT) and adverse experiences are known predictors of school-age PA and also partly heritable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Officially reported and self-reported measures of child maltreatment show poor agreement and may differentially predict psychosocial problems in adulthood. However, research remains primarily based on retrospective self-reports, warranting examination of the validity of prospective assessments of maltreatment.
Objective: To assess the construct validity of prospective indicators of child maltreatment using a longitudinal cohort of Canadian children.
Importance: Nature-based therapeutic or preventive interventions for mental health are increasingly popular, but their effectiveness for improving mental health is not well documented.
Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of the Open Sky School Program (École à Ciel Ouvert), a 12-week nature-based intervention for elementary schoolchildren in grades 5 and 6, for reducing mental health symptoms.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This 2-arm, cluster randomized clinical trial was conducted from February 27 to June 16, 2023, in French-language elementary schools in Quebec, Canada, with green space within 1 km.
Childhood maltreatment is linked with later depressive symptoms, but not every maltreated child will experience symptoms later in life. Therefore, we investigate whether genetic predisposition for depression (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hyperactivity and inattention, the symptoms of ADHD, are marked by high levels of heritability and intergenerational transmission. Two distinct pathways of genetic intergenerational transmission are distinguished: direct genetic transmission when parental genetic variants are passed to the child's genome and genetic nurture when the parental genetic background contributes to the child's outcomes through rearing environment. This study assessed genetic contributions to hyperactivity and inattention in childhood through these transmission pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Frequent or prolonged exposure to stressors may jeopardize young children's health. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with disruptions in daily routines and social isolation resulting from public health preventive measures, have raised concerns about its potential impact on children' experienced stress, particularly for young children and vulnerable families. However, whether the pandemic was accompanied by changes in physiological stress remains unknown as perceived stress is not a good proxy of physiological stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hair has become an increasingly valuable medium to investigate the association between chronic stress, stable differences in systemic cortisol secretion and later health. Assessing cortisol in hair has many advantages, notably its non-invasive and retrospective nature, the need for a single biospecimen and convenient storage until analysis. However, few studies offered empirical evidence documenting the long-term temporal stability of hair cortisol concentration (HCC) prior to analysis, especially in humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Adolescent media use is thought to influence mental health, but whether it is associated with psychotic experiences (PEs) is unclear.
Objective: To examine longitudinal trajectories of adolescent media use and their associations with PEs at 23 years of age.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study included participants from the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (1998-2021): children who were born in Québec, Canada, and followed up annually or biennially from ages 5 months through 23 years.
Introduction: Firefighters face elevated risks of common mental health issues, with distress rates estimated at around 30%, surpassing those of many other occupational groups. While exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) is a well-recognized risk factor, existing research acknowledges the need for a broader perspective encompassing multidimensional factors within the realm of occupational stress. Furthermore, this body of evidence heavily relies on cross-sectional studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdverse environments are linked to elevated youth antisocial behavior. However, this relation is thought to depend, in part, on genetic susceptibility. The present study investigated whether polygenic risk for antisociality moderates relations between hostile environments and stable as well as dynamic antisocial behaviors across adolescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Signature Biobank is a longitudinal repository of biospecimen, psychological, sociodemographic, and diagnostic data that was created in 2012. The Signature Consortium represents a group of approximately one hundred Quebec-based transdisciplinary clinicians and research scientists with various expertise in the field of psychiatry. The objective of the Signature Biobank is to investigate the multi-faceted underpinnings of psychiatric disorders among patients in crisis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe assessed phthalate-hormone associations in 382 pregnant women of the new-generation SEPAGES cohort (2014-2017, France) using improved exposure and outcome assessments. Metabolites from seven phthalate compounds and the replacement di(isononyl)cyclohexane-1,2-dicarboxylate (DINCH) were measured in within-subject pools of repeated urine samples collected at the second and third pregnancy trimesters (≈21 samples/trimester). Metabolites from five steroid hormones were measured in maternal hair samples collected at delivery, reflecting cumulative levels over the previous weeks to months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol
June 2024
Background: Exposure to socioeconomic adversity is hypothesized to impact hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and cortisol secretion, but existing evidence is inconsistent. Yet, few studies have investigated this association using a developmental approach that considers potential protective contextual factors. This study examined the role of stability and changes in family socioeconomic status (SES) in the prediction of multiple cortisol indicators and tested whether social support moderated these associations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol
January 2024
Purpose: Digital media use has been associated with psychotic experiences in youth from the community, but the direction of association remains unclear. We aimed to examine between- and within-person associations of digital media use and psychotic experiences in youth.
Methods: The sample included 425 participants aged 18-25 years (82.
Introduction: School underachievement has been shown to mediate the association between inattention and depressive symptoms in middle childhood. However, is it not clear whether these sequential associations are underpinned by genetic and environmental pathways, and the extent to which associated disruptive behaviors, such as hyperactivity/impulsivity, and peer relation difficulties partly account for these associations.
Methods: The present study used a longitudinal study of twins assessed from Kindergarten to Grade 6 to address these questions using multivariate biometric modeling.
Background: Both prospective and retrospective measures of child maltreatment predict mental and physical health problems, despite their weak concordance. Research remains largely based on retrospective reports spanning the entire childhood due to a scarcity of prospectively completed measures targeting maltreatment specifically.
Objective: We developed a prospective index of child maltreatment in the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) using prospective information collected from ages 5 months to 17 years and examined its concordance with retrospective maltreatment.
Both common pain and anxiety problems are widespread, debilitating and often begin in childhood-adolescence. Twin studies indicate that this co-occurrence is likely due to shared elements of risk, rather than reciprocal causation. A joint genome-wide investigation and pathway/network-based analysis of adolescent anxiety and pain problems can identify genetic pathways that subserve shared etiopathogenetic mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Child sexual abuse remains a worldwide concern with devastating consequences on an individual's life. This longitudinal study investigates the associations between child sexual abuse (official reports versus retrospective self-reports) and subgroups by perpetrator identity (intrafamilial and extrafamilial), severity (penetration/attempted penetration, fondling/touching, noncontact), and chronicity (single, multiple episodes) and employment earnings in adulthood in a cohort followed for over 30 years.
Methods: The Quebec Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Children database was linked to child protection services (official reports of sexual abuse) and to Canadian government tax returns (earned income).
Prospective studies suggest that child maltreatment substantially increases the risk for depression in adulthood. However, the mechanisms underlying this association require further elucidation. In recent years, DNA methylation has emerged as a potential mechanism by which maltreatment experiences (a) could partly explain the emergence or aggravation of depressive symptoms (i.
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