BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    ASD and schizophrenia show distinct developmental profiles in common genetic overlap with population-based social-communication difficulties

    St Pourcain, B. and Robinson, E. and Anttila, V. and Bulik-Sullivan, B. and Maller, J. and Golding, J. and Skuse, D. and Ring, S. and Evans, D. and Zammit, S. and Fisher, S. and Neale, B. and Anney, R. and Ripke, S. and Hollegaard, M. and Werge, T. and Ronald, Angelica and Grove, J. and Hougaard, D. and Børglum, A. and Mortensen, P. and Daly, M. and Davey Smith, G. (2018) ASD and schizophrenia show distinct developmental profiles in common genetic overlap with population-based social-communication difficulties. Molecular Psychiatry 23 , pp. 263-270. ISSN 1359-4184.

    [img]
    Preview
    Text
    St Pourcain et al 2017.pdf - Published Version of Record
    Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

    Download (353kB) | Preview

    Abstract

    Difficulties in social communication are part of the phenotypic overlap between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia. Both conditions follow, however, distinct developmental patterns. Symptoms of ASD typically occur during early childhood, whereas most symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia do not appear before early adulthood. We investigated whether overlap in common genetic influences between these clinical conditions and impairments in social communication depends on the developmental stage of the assessed trait. Social communication difficulties were measured in typically-developing youth (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, Nless than or equal to5553, longitudinal assessments at 8, 11, 14 and 17 years) using the Social Communication Disorder Checklist. Data on clinical ASD (PGC-ASD: 5305 cases, 5305 pseudo-controls; iPSYCH-ASD: 7783 cases, 11 359 controls) and schizophrenia (PGC-SCZ2: 34 241 cases, 45 604 controls, 1235 trios) were either obtained through the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) or the Danish iPSYCH project. Overlap in genetic influences between ASD and social communication difficulties during development decreased with age, both in the PGC-ASD and the iPSYCH-ASD sample. Genetic overlap between schizophrenia and social communication difficulties, by contrast, persisted across age, as observed within two independent PGC-SCZ2 subsamples, and showed an increase in magnitude for traits assessed during later adolescence. ASD- and schizophrenia-related polygenic effects were unrelated to each other and changes in trait-disorder links reflect the heterogeneity of genetic factors influencing social communication difficulties during childhood versus later adolescence. Thus, both clinical ASD and schizophrenia share some genetic influences with impairments in social communication, but reveal distinct developmental profiles in their genetic links, consistent with the onset of clinical symptoms.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Depositing User: Angelica Ronald
    Date Deposited: 01 Feb 2017 17:37
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:25
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/15820

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    232Downloads
    6 month trend
    391Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item Edit/View Item