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Abstract
In children, psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are related to risk of psychosis, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders. Maladaptive cognitive functioning, influenced by genetic and environmental factors, is hypothesized to mediate the relationship between these factors and childhood PLEs. Using large-scale longitudinal data, we tested the relationships of genetic and environmental factors (such as familial and neighborhood environment) with cognitive intelligence and their relationships with current and future PLEs in children. We leveraged large-scale multimodal data of 6,602 children from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study. Linear mixed model and a novel structural equation modeling (SEM) method that allows estimation of both components and factors were used to estimate the joint effects of cognitive phenotypes polygenic scores (PGSs), familial and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES), and supportive environment on NIH Toolbox cognitive intelligence and PLEs. We adjusted for ethnicity (genetically defined), schizophrenia PGS, and additionally unobserved confounders (using computational confound modeling). Our findings indicate that lower cognitive intelligence and higher PLEs are significantly associated with lower PGSs for cognitive phenotypes, lower familial SES, lower neighborhood SES, and less supportive environments. Specifically, cognitive intelligence mediates the effects of these factors on PLEs, with supportive parenting and positive school environments showing the strongest impact on reducing PLEs. This study underscores the influence of genetic and environmental factors on PLEs through their effects on cognitive intelligence. Our findings have policy implications in that improving school and family environments and promoting local economic development may enhance cognitive and mental health in children.
Highlights
Childhood is the critical developmental period in human life
This study investigated the relationships of the genetic and environmental influences on the development of intelligence and the psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in youth, leveraging genetic data from the large epidemiological samples and a multi-level environmental data
Our results support the model that genetic factors (PGS for cognitive phenotypes), socioeconomic conditions, and family and school environments may influence cognitive intelligence in children, and this impact may lead to the individual variability of the current and future PLEs in children
Summary
Childhood is the critical developmental period in human life. Cognitive intelligence and mental health in this period significantly impact key life outcomes at later ages, including academic performance, economic productivity, physical health, intelligence, and psychopathology (Shonkoff, 2012; Walker et al, 2022). Literature shows the significant impact of social adversities on cognitive ability and mental health in early childhood. Additional to family SES, the importance of neighborhood social environment on children’s neurocognitive ability has been emphasized (Gard et al, 2021; Tooley et al, 2020). Adverse neighborhood environment, such as the percent of families below poverty line, low education levels, and exposure to violence, is associated with lower cognitive performance (CP) and a greater risk for psychosis in children (Butler et al, 2018; Karcher et al, 2021; Rakesh et al, 2021; Taylor et al, 2020). As protective factors against familial and neighborhood socioeconomic challenges, supportive parenting (Brody et al, 2017; Brody et al, 2019; Holmes et al, 2018; Luby et al, 2012; Luby et al, 2016) and positive school environment (Gard et al, 2021; Piccolo et al, 2019; Rakesh et al, 2021) have been highlighted to improve child cognition and mental health
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