Associations Between Genetic Risk For Psychiatric Disorders and Childhood Neurodevelopment: Investigating Polygenic Risk Scores For Psychiatric Disorders and Traits In General Population Samples

Abstract

Most psychiatric disorders are thought to have their origins at least in part in childhood, even if early manifestations of liability are quite different from the later full-blown clinical picture. This work aims to identify traits relevant to risk for psychiatric disorders early in development by investigating which "neurodevelopmental domains" are associated with psychiatric disorder risk alleles during childhood. Findings will be presented testing the hypothesis that psychiatric disorder risk alleles, as measured by polygenic risk scores, affect normative, dimensional childhood characteristics in the general population. Specifically, this work investigates associations between polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and primarily pre-pubertal neurodevelopmental traits using longitudinal general population samples.