Citation
Brett, Zoe H.; Sheridan, Margaret A.; Humphreys, Kathryn L.; Smyke, Anna; Gleason, Mary Margaret; Fox, Nathan A.; Zeanah, Charles H.; Nelson, Charles A., III; & Drury, Stacy S. (2015). A Neurogenetics Approach to Defining Differential Susceptibility to Institutional Care. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 39(2), 150-160. PMCID: PMC4317330Abstract
An individual's neurodevelopmental and cognitive sequelae to negative early experiences may, in part, be explained by genetic susceptibility. We examined whether extreme differences in the early caregiving environment, defined as exposure to severe psychosocial deprivation associated with institutional care compared to normative rearing, interacted with a biologically informed genoset comprising BDNF (rs6265), COMT (rs4680), and SIRT1 (rs3758391) to predict distinct outcomes of neurodevelopment at age 8 (N = 193, 97 males and 96 females). Ethnicity was categorized as Romanian (71%), Roma (21%), unknown (7%), or other (1%). We identified a significant interaction between early caregiving environment (i.e., institutionalized versus never institutionalized children) and the a priori defined genoset for full-scale IQ, two spatial working memory tasks, and prefrontal cortex gray matter volume. Model validation was performed using a bootstrap resampling procedure. Although we hypothesized that the effect of this genoset would operate in a manner consistent with differential susceptibility, our results demonstrate a complex interaction where vantage susceptibility, diathesis stress, and differential susceptibility are implicated.URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0165025414538557Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2015Journal Title
International Journal of Behavioral DevelopmentAuthor(s)
Brett, Zoe H.Sheridan, Margaret A.
Humphreys, Kathryn L.
Smyke, Anna
Gleason, Mary Margaret
Fox, Nathan A.
Zeanah, Charles H.
Nelson, Charles A., III
Drury, Stacy S.