title: A Bivariate Genetic Analysis of Drug Abuse Ascertained Through Medical and Criminal Registries in Swedish Twins, Siblings and Half-Siblings.
abstract: Using Swedish nationwide registry data, the authors investigated the correlation of genetic and environmental risk factors in the etiology of drug abuse as ascertained from medical and criminal registries by modeling twin and sibling data. Medical drug abuse was defined using public inpatient and outpatient records, while criminal drug abuse was ascertained through legal records. Twin, full and half sibling pairs were obtained from the national twin and genealogical registers. Information about sibling pair residence within the same household was obtained from Statistics Sweden. Standard bivariate genetic structural equation modeling was applied to the population-based data on drug abuse ascertained through medical and crime registries, using OpenMx. Analyses of all possible pairs of twins (MZ: N = 4482; DZ: N = 9838 pairs), full- (N = 1,278,086) and half-siblings (paternal: N = 7767; maternal N = 70,553) who grew up together suggested that factors explaining familial resemblance for drug abuse as defined through medical or criminal registries were mostly the same. Results showed substantial heritability and moderate contributions of shared environmental factors to drug abuse; both were higher in males versus females, and higher for drug abuse ascertained through criminal than medical records. Because of the low prevalence of both assessments of drug abuse, having access to population data was crucial to obtain stable estimates. Using objective registry data, the authors found that drug abuse-whether ascertained through medical versus criminal records-was highly heritable. Furthermore, shared environmental factors contributed significantly to the liability of drug abuse. Genetic and shared environmental risk factors for these two forms of drug abuse were highly correlated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, PO Box 980003, Richmond, VA, 23298-0003, USA. hmaes@vcu.edu.|Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA. hmaes@vcu.edu.|Massey Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA. hmaes@vcu.edu.|Department of Kinesiology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. hmaes@vcu.edu.
authors.forename: Hermine H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.affiliation: Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, PO Box 980003, Richmond, VA, 23298-0003, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Michael C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Neale
authors.affiliation: Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ohlsson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Mahsa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zahery
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lichtenstein
authors.affiliation: Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sundquist
authors.affiliation: Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sundquist
authors.affiliation: Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, PO Box 980003, Richmond, VA, 23298-0003, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Kenneth S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Kendler
mesh_terms: D057237:Criminals; D005260:Female; D018740:Genetic Heterogeneity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012042:Registries; D035781:Siblings; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D014427:Twins / Q000235:genetics*
keywords: Drug abuse; Half-siblings; Siblings; Twins