That there is a “heritable” component to experiencing and recalling trauma, including childhood maltreatment, has been documented in twin studies that also suggest shared genetic components with psychopathology [e.g., (1)]. In the current issue of Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, ter Kuile et al. (2) examine contributions of common genetic variants influencing health and behavioral traits and psychiatric disorders to the heritability of reported childhood maltreatment. Using genomic structural equation modeling of genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics, selected, in part, based on genetic correlations (rg) with reported childhood maltreatment (|single nucleotide polymorphism [SNP]−rg| > 0.25), the authors identify relevant traits (general risk tolerance and subjective well-being) and disorders (autism spectrum disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder) that collectively explain 58% of the SNP-based heritability (h2SNP) of reported childhood maltreatment. These findings provoke readers to consider the varied mechanisms by which childhood maltreatment might interface and interfere with psychiatric health and well-being. In this commentary, we consider the implications of studying childhood maltreatment in large genotyped cohorts and discuss the prospect of using family-based designs to extend the hypotheses generated by ter Kuile et al. ...
Language: en
", language="en", issn="2667-1743", doi="10.1016/j.bpsgos.2023.08.015", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2023.08.015" }