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Substantial Genetic Overlap Between Schizotypy and Neuroticism: A Twin Study

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Abstract

Schizotypy is phenotypically associated with neuroticism. To reveal the origin of this association, we assessed 3,349 (1,449 monozygotic, 1,105 dizygotic [DZ] same-sex and 795 DZ opposite-sex) twins on a 12-item version of Chapman’s Psychosis-Proneness Scales and the short form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised as measures of schizotypy and neuroticism. A substantial proportion (0.51 with 95 % CI from 0.38 to 0.64) of the phenotypic correlation of 0.37 between neuroticism and the perceptual and ideational components of schizotypy was accounted for by shared genetic influences on these two traits. Moreover, a Cholesky decomposition including anhedonia, hypomania and impulsivity fully accounted for the heritable variance in perceptual and ideational components of schizotypy. These findings suggest a shared genetic etiology between neuroticism and perceptual and ideational components of schizotypy and affect future investigations on the etiology of these phenotypically overlapping traits and affective and psychotic disorders.

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Notes

  1. The 12-item version is based on item reduction of the original PPS. Latter was factor analyzed and the resulting four factors were subjected to a reduction procedure based on: high item-total correlations, high frequency of responses in both genders, exclusion of items responded ≤10 or ≥90 %, low loading on factors, limited face validity because of the possibility of ‘faking good’ and a “reasonable level of general acceptance” (see Hay et al. 2001 for details). High correlations between the factors derived from the 12-item version of the PPS and the original PPS (0.96, 0.97, 0.96, 0.90 for Per-Mag, Hyp-Imp, San and Pan respectively; Hay et al. 2001) were obtained.

  2. The sample analysed here was taken from the same cohort of twins as the sample described by Hay and colleagues. However, due to differences in exclusion criteria, the sample used by Hay and colleagues did not overlap completely with our sample.

  3. Missing data on age was substituted whenever possible (e.g. when the co-twin provided data on zygosity status as well as on age). Two hundred twenty-one twins did not provide data on age. There were no differences in terms of either positive schizotypy or neuroticism scores between these twins and those who provided data on age.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank David Smyth and Harry Beeby (QIMR) for maintaining data integrity. This work was supported by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants to NGM and NIH grants to ACH. Data analysis was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Emmy Noether program (ET 31/2-1) to UE; a project grant of the Förderprogramm für Forschung und Lehre (FöFoLe) of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich to UE (Reg-Nr. 645); and a travel grant of the Graduate Center at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich to CM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Kaiser-Karl-Ring 9, 53111, Bonn, Germany

    Christine Macare & Ulrich Ettinger

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Timothy C. Bates

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Washington University Medical School, St Louis, MO, USA

    Andrew C. Heath

  4. Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Nicholas G. Martin

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  1. Christine Macare
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  2. Timothy C. Bates
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  4. Nicholas G. Martin
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  5. Ulrich Ettinger
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Correspondence to Christine Macare.

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Edited by Peter McGuffin.

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Macare, C., Bates, T.C., Heath, A.C. et al. Substantial Genetic Overlap Between Schizotypy and Neuroticism: A Twin Study. Behav Genet 42, 732–742 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-012-9558-6

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