Abstract
This study documented the etiology contributions between anxiety symptoms (AS) and depressive symptoms (DS) from ages 6–12 years. Teachers assessed AS and DS in 1112 twins at 5 time points. A genetic cross-lagged model was used to estimate genetic/environmental contributions to cross-sectional, cross-age and cross-lag associations. The variance in AS and DS was largely time-specific and more genetic in nature for DS than for AS. Previous DS predicted subsequent DS better than cross-lag or previous common effects, and AS up to age 9 better than previous AS or previous common effects. Thereafter, previous AS predicted subsequent AS. All predictions involved both genetic and unique environment. Suppression effects were found and, when controlled, AS marginally predicted DS from age 7 onward through genetic influences. AS and DS are associated throughout childhood. DS are more stable than AS, and more central to both subsequent AS and DS. AS marginally contribute to subsequent DS.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the children and their parents who participated in the Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS). We thank GRIP staff for data collection and management. Laurence Tanguay-Garneau was supported by scholarships from the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture and by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This study was funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Santé (2004-AI-93881, 2007-JA-118285, 2004-JH-95062), the Conseil québécois de la recherche sociale (CQRS) (SR-3473), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (HDF-FCA-42966), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2001-0552, 410-2001-1475, 410-2006-0930, 410-2008-1790), and the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network.
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Laurence Tanguay-Garneau, Michel Boivin, Bei Feng, Alexandra Matte-Landry, Mara Brendgen, Frank Vitaro, and Ginette Dionne declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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The Comité d'éthique de la recherche du Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine gave approval (1897, 2611, 2832) to the Quebec Newborn Twin Study. The study was conducted according to the ethical standards stated in the 1964 Helsinki declaration. Parental consent was obtained before each data collection. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
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Tanguay-Garneau, L., Boivin, M., Feng, B. et al. A Genetic Cross-Lagged Study of the Longitudinal Association Between Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms During Childhood. Behav Genet 50, 105–118 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-019-09988-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-019-09988-1