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Genetic Correlation between Child Callous-Unemotional Behaviors and Fear Recognition Deficit: Evidence for a Neurocognitive Endophenotype

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Abstract

This study investigates emotion recognition deficits as candidate neurocognitive endophenotypes for callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors. Using a twin design, we tested genetic correlations between child CU behaviors and poor processing of fearful and sad facial expressions. Participants were 504 twin pairs (209 MZ pairs; 295 DZ pairs) from the Quebec Newborn Twin Study, a longitudinal study of a population-based sample of twins. Teachers in kindergarten and first grade rated children’s CU behaviors and other behavior problems (attention deficit and hyperactivity symptoms, physical aggression, and depressive symptoms). In first grade (mean age 7 years), the children completed the visual subtest of the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Scale 2 (DANVA-II) to assess emotion recognition from facial stimuli. Using structural equation modeling, we examined the genetic-environmental etiology of the association between fear/sadness recognition and child CU behaviors, controlling for other behavior problems and recognition of other emotions. We found a significant genetic correlation between poor fear recognition and CU behaviors that was independent of other behavior problems. Poor recognition of sadness was not significantly associated with CU behaviors after taking into account other behavior problems. Our results suggest that CU behaviors and fear recognition have a partly shared genetic aetiology. This provides support for poor fear recognition as a key neurocognitive endophenotype for CU behaviors. Future research should test a hypothesized causal chain from specific genes, through amygdala functioning and fear recognition, to CU behaviors, and identify specific environmental factors (including intervention) that may disrupt this chain.

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Notes

  1. We used residuals to control for other emotion recognition scores rather than include them in the Cholesky model, in order to make the Cholesky model simpler, easier to fit and clearer to present visually. In contrast, we controlled for behavior problems other than CU by including them in the Cholesky model, because we thought readers may be interested in the genetic/environmental relationships between these behavior problems and emotion recognition.

  2. We also tested, in two separate multiple regression analyses, whether CU behaviors specifically predicted fear and sadness recognition, while controlling for the other behavior problems and recognition of the other emotions. Only CU behaviors – and none of the other behavior problems – significantly predicted fear recognition over and above the other variables. Neither CU behaviors nor the other behavior problems predicted sadness recognition over and above the other variables. These additional results are available from the first author.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the National Health Research Development Program (NHRDP), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Canada Research Chair Program, the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture (FQRSC), the Fonds de Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ), and the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte Justine Research Center. We are grateful to the parents and children who participated in the Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS) and the staff from the Groupe de recherche sur l’inadaptation psychosociale chez l’enfant (GRIP) for data collection, management, and preparation.

This work was conducted at the School of Psychology, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada; at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA, and at the Department of Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago, IL, USA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Amélie Petitclerc

  2. École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada

    Jeffrey Henry, Bei Feng, Ginette Dionne & Michel Boivin

  3. CHU de Québec-Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada

    Natalia Poliakova

  4. Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Mara Brendgen

  5. Département de psychoéducation, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Frank Vitaro

  6. School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Richard Ernest Tremblay

  7. Départements de pédiatrie et de psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Richard Ernest Tremblay

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  1. Amélie Petitclerc
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  2. Jeffrey Henry
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Correspondence to Amélie Petitclerc.

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Petitclerc, A., Henry, J., Feng, B. et al. Genetic Correlation between Child Callous-Unemotional Behaviors and Fear Recognition Deficit: Evidence for a Neurocognitive Endophenotype. J Abnorm Child Psychol 47, 1483–1493 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00529-2

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