title: Genetic variations in the serotoninergic system and environmental factors contribute to aggressive behavior in Chinese adolescents.
abstract: Aggressive behavior is a major public health problem worldwide and has been associated with many gene variants, especially those related to the serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) system, and environmental factors. However, the overall contribution of serotonin-related genes to aggressive behavior is not well understood. With a sample of 478 healthy Chinese volunteers, this study investigated the relation between aggressive behavior and genetic variations of the serotoninergic system (as characterized by 129 representative polymorphisms) interacting with environmental factors (parental warmth and acceptance; stressful life events). We adopted a system-level approach to identify SNPs and environmental factors associated with aggressive behavior, and estimated their overall contribution to aggressive behavior using multiple regression, which was then verified by permutation analysis. We identified 12 SNPs that made statistically significant contributions to aggressive behavior. Next, main effects, interactions among these SNPs, and interactions between these SNPs and environmental factors were assessed using multiple regression. The final model accounted for approximately 19% of the variance for aggressive behavior. Permutation analysis confirmed that the probability of obtaining these findings by chance was low (p=0.045, permuted for 1000 times). These results showed that genetic variations in the serotoninergic system, combined with environmental risk factors, made a moderate contribution to individual differences in aggressive behavior among a healthy population sample.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Chunhui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Chang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Chuansheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA; Institute of Genomics and Bioinformatics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Moyzis
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. Electronic address: dongqi@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Dong
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression; D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics; D002681:China; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D060005:Genotyping Techniques; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000235:genetics*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Aggressive behavior; Heritability; Polygenicity; Serotonin