Heterogeneity in antisocial behaviours and comorbidity with depressed mood: a behavioural genetic approach.
BACKGROUND
Antisocial behaviour is often comorbid with depressed mood but is itself a collection of heterogeneous behaviours. Using a genetically informative design, we examine heterogeneity in antisocial behaviour and overlaps between different forms of antisocial behaviour with depressed mood.


METHODS
Data were drawn from the G1219 large-scale community sample containing self-report questionnaire data from 941 twin pairs and 328 sibling-pairs aged 12-21 years.


RESULTS
Inter-correlations among oppositionality, physical aggression and delinquency, and between the antisocial subscales and depressed mood, were mediated by genetic and non-shared environmental influences. Genetic factors generally contributed more to the correlations than the non-shared environment.


CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that many genetic and non-shared environmental influences were common to all the traits studied, but there was also evidence for trait-specific effects.
Rowe
Richard
R
University of Sheffield, UK. r.rowe@sheffield.ac.uk
Rijsdijk
Fruhling V
FV
Maughan
Barbara
B
Eley
Thalia C
TC
Hosang
Georgina M
GM
Eley
Thalia C
TC
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D018740:Genetic Heterogeneity; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012931:Social Environment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014427:Twins / Q000235:genetics*