The contribution of common genetic risk variants for ADHD to a general factor of childhood psychopathology.

Brikell I, Larsson H, Lu Y, Pettersson E, Chen Q, Kuja-Halkola R, Karlsson R, Lahey BB, Lichtenstein P, Martin J

Mol. Psychiatry - (-) - [2018-06-22; online 2018-06-22]

Common genetic risk variants have been implicated in the etiology of clinical attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses and symptoms in the general population. However, given the extensive comorbidity across ADHD and other psychiatric conditions, the extent to which genetic variants associated with ADHD also influence broader psychopathology dimensions remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between ADHD polygenic risk scores (PRS) and a broad range of childhood psychiatric symptoms, and to quantify the extent to which such associations can be attributed to a general factor of childhood psychopathology. We derived ADHD PRS for 13,457 children aged 9 or 12 from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, using results from an independent meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of ADHD diagnosis and symptoms. We estimated associations between ADHD PRS, a general psychopathology factor, and several dimensions of neurodevelopmental, externalizing, and internalizing symptoms, using structural equation modeling. Higher ADHD PRS were statistically significantly associated with elevated neurodevelopmental, externalizing, and depressive symptoms (R

NGI Uppsala (SNP&SEQ Technology Platform) [Service]

National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]

PubMed 29934545

DOI 10.1038/s41380-018-0109-2

Crossref 10.1038/s41380-018-0109-2

pii: 10.1038/s41380-018-0109-2