Evaluating longitudinal relationships between parental monitoring and substance use in a multi-year, intensive longitudinal study of 670 adolescent twins.

Introduction: Parental monitoring is a key intervention target for adolescent substance use, however this practice is largely supported by causally uninformative cross-sectional or sparse-longitudinal observational research designs.

Methods: We therefore evaluated relationships between adolescent substance use (assessed weekly) and parental monitoring (assessed every two months) in 670 adolescent twins for two years. This allowed us to assess how individual-level parental monitoring and substance use trajectories were related and, via the twin design, to quantify genetic and environmental contributions to these relationships.

Etiological Overlap Between Sex Under the Influence and Number of Lifetime Sexual Partners.

Drug and alcohol use is associated with risky sexual behavior (RSB). It is unclear whether this association is due to correlated liabilities (e.g.

The Colorado Twin Registry: 2019 Update.

The Colorado Twin Registry (CTR) is a population-based registry formed from birth and school records including twins born between 1968 and the present. Two previous reports on the CTR [Rhea et al., (2006).

Independent predictors of mortality in adolescents ascertained for conduct disorder and substance use problems, their siblings and community controls.

Background And Aims: Adolescents with conduct and substance use problems are at increased risk for premature mortality, but the extent to which these risk factors reflect family- or individual-level differences and account for shared or unique variance is unknown. This study examined common and independent contributions to mortality hazard in adolescents ascertained for conduct disorder (CD) and substance use disorder (SUD), their siblings and community controls, hypothesizing that individual differences in CD and SUD severity would explain unique variation in mortality risk beyond that due to clinical/control status and demographic factors.

Design: Mortality analysis in a prospective study (Genetics of Antisocial Drug Dependence Study) that began in 1993.

Higher Rates of DZ Twinning in a Twenty-First Century Birth Cohort.

The Colorado Twin Registry is a population based registry initiated in 1984 with the involvement of the Colorado Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics. Recruitment includes birth cohorts several years prior to 1984 and all subsequent years. As part of a recent evaluation of Colorado birth records for the years 2006 through 2008 we became aware of a shifting trend in the proportion of MZ and DZ twins in the Colorado population.

Stability and change in executive function abilities from late adolescence to early adulthood: A longitudinal twin study.

Executive functions (EFs)-the higher level cognitive abilities that enable us to control our own thoughts and actions-continue to develop into early adulthood, yet no longitudinal study has examined their stability during the important life transition from late adolescence to young adulthood. In this twin study (total N = 840 individuals from 424 families), we examined the stability of individual differences in 3 EF components across a 6-year period, from approximately age 17 years (Wave 1) to 23 years (Wave 2). Specifically, we address the following questions: (a) How stable are individual differences in multiple EFs across this time period? and (b) What (genetic and/or environmental) influences affect stability and change in EFs? Results indicated that individual differences in EFs are quite stable across this 6-year period (phenotypic latent variable correlations ranged from 0.

Reviving the Louisville Twin Study: An Introduction.

Researchers who are interested in breathing new life into the long dormant Louisville Twin Study (LTS) presented several papers at the 2015 meeting of the behavior genetics association. This brief introduction provides a short history of the Kentucky LTS as well as synopses of expanded analyses from the presentations on genetic change and continuity in cognitive and behavioral development and those exploring aspects of the influence of gene-environment interaction on cognition.

Design, Utility, and History of the Colorado Adoption Project: Examples Involving Adjustment Interactions.

This paper describes the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP), a longitudinal study in behavioral development, and discusses how adoption studies may be used to assess genetic and environmental etiologies of individual differences for important developmental outcomes. Previous CAP research on adjustment outcomes in childhood and adolescence which found significant interactions, including gene-environment interactions, is reviewed. New research suggests mediating effects of menarche and religiosity on age at first sex in this predominantly middle-class, Caucasian sample.

Relations between Preschool Attention Span-Persistence and Age 25 Educational Outcomes.

This study examined relations between children's attention span-persistence in preschool and later school achievement and college completion. Children were drawn from the Colorado Adoption Project using adopted and non-adopted children ( = 430). Results of structural equation modeling indicated that children's age 4 attention span-persistence significantly predicted math and reading achievement at age 21 after controlling for achievement levels at age 7, adopted status, child vocabulary skills, gender, and maternal education level.

The Colorado Adoption Project.

This paper describes the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP), an ongoing genetically informative longitudinal study of behavioral development. We describe the features of the adoption design used in CAP, and discuss how this type of design uses data from both parent-offspring and related- versus unrelated-sibling comparisons to estimate the importance of genetic and shared environmental influences for resemblance among family members. The paper provides an overview of CAP's history, how subjects were ascertained, recruited, and retained, and the domains of assessment that have been explored since the CAP's initiation in 1975.

Colorado Twin Registry: an update.

The Colorado Twin Registry (CTR) is a population-based registry housed at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado. Recruitment began in 1982 and includes twins born from 1968 to the present. Four samples are currently drawn from the CTR: The Community Twin Sample, the Longitudinal Twin Sample, the Early Reading Development Sample, and the Colorado Learning Sample.

Conduct Problems in Adopted and Non-adopted Adolescents and Adoption Satisfaction as a Protective Factor.

The present study compared the level of conduct problems at age 17 in a large, non-clinical sample of adopted participants placed in infancy and children in non-adoptive families matched to the adoptive families on demographic characteristics. Higher levels of adolescent and parent adoption satisfaction were associated with lower levels of conduct problems. Gender by adoption status interactions were not significant.

Bivariate analysis of disordered eating characteristics in adolescence and young adulthood.

Objective: We examined the etiology of two disordered eating characteristics.

Method: Participants included 1,470 female adolescent and young adult twins and their female nontwin siblings. Phenotypic factor analyses of a seven-item eating pathology screening tool yielded two factors: weight and shape concerns and behaviors (WSCB) and binge eating (BE).

Genetic and shared environmental influences on children's 24-h food and beverage intake: sex differences at age 7 y.

Background: The genetics of habitual food and beverage intake in early childhood is poorly understood.

Objective: The objective was to test the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on 24-h food and beverage intake in 7-y-old children. The association between intake of specific food-beverage categories and child body mass index (BMI; in kg/m(2)) was also tested.

Colorado Twin Registry.

The Colorado Twin Registry (CTR) is a population-based registry housed at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado. Recruited subjects' birth years date from 1968. Four samples comprise the CTR: the Community Twin Sample, Infant Twin Sample, Longitudinal Twin Sample, and the Early Reading Development Sample.