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Widowhood and the Stability of Late Life Depressive Symptomatology in the Swedish Adoption Twin Study of Aging

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Abstract

Although the Swedish Adoption Twin of Aging (SATSA) has been used to investigate phenotypic stability of late life depressive symptoms, the biometric processes underlying this stability have not been studied. Under a reciprocal effects modeling framework, we used SATSA twins’ Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale data across 5 waves (from 1987–2007) to test whether the reciprocal exchange between twins within a family and their nonshared environments (P<=>E) promote the accumulation of gene-environment correlation (rGE) over time. The model generates increasing rGE that produces subsequent stable environmental differences between twins within a family—a process hypothesized to explain stability in chronic late life depressive symptoms. Widowhood is included as a stressful life experience that may introduce an additional nonshared source of variability in CES-D scores. Genetic effects and nonshared environmental effects are primary sources of stability of late life depressive symptoms without evidence of underlying rGE processes. Additionally, widowhood explained stable differences in CES-D scores between twins within a family up to 3 years after spousal loss.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1R01HD056354-01) and the National Institute on Aging (1F31AG044047-01A1 and T32AG020500).

Conflict of Interest

None.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This report does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Christopher R. Beam, Robert E. Emery & Eric Turkheimer

  2. University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

    Chandra A. Reynolds

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, 3620 South McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Christopher R. Beam, Margaret Gatz & Nancy L. Pedersen

  4. Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

    Margaret Gatz & Nancy L. Pedersen

Authors
  1. Christopher R. Beam
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  2. Robert E. Emery
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  3. Chandra A. Reynolds
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  4. Margaret Gatz
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  5. Eric Turkheimer
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  6. Nancy L. Pedersen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher R. Beam.

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Beam, C.R., Emery, R.E., Reynolds, C.A. et al. Widowhood and the Stability of Late Life Depressive Symptomatology in the Swedish Adoption Twin Study of Aging. Behav Genet 46, 100–113 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9733-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9733-7

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