Abstract
Low prosocial behavior in childhood has been consistently linked to later psychopathology, with evidence supporting the influence of both genetic and environmental factors on its development. Although neonatal DNA methylation (DNAm) has been found to prospectively associate with a range of psychological traits in childhood, its potential role in prosocial development has yet to be investigated. This study investigated prospective associations between cord blood DNAm at birth and low prosocial behavior within and across four longitudinal birth cohorts from the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics (PACE) Consortium. We examined (a) developmental trajectories of "chronic-low" versus "typical" prosocial behavior across childhood in a case-control design (N=2,095), and (b) continuous "low prosocial" scores at comparable cross-cohort time-points (N=2,121). Meta-analyses were performed to examine differentially methylated positions and regions. At the cohort-specific level, three CpGs were found to associate with chronic low prosocial behavior; however, none of these associations was replicated in another cohort. Meta-analysis revealed no epigenome-wide significant CpGs or regions. Overall, we found no evidence for associations between DNAm patterns at birth and low prosocial behavior across childhood. Findings highlight the importance of employing multi-cohort approaches to replicate epigenetic associations and reduce the risk of false positive discoveries.
Highlights
Prosocial behavior, defined as voluntary behavior intended to benefit others, provides a foundation for social competence and moral development (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006)
This study investigated prospective associations between cord blood DNA methylation (DNAm) at birth and low prosocial behavior within and across four longitudinal birth cohorts from the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics (PACE) Consortium
The current study examined whether DNAm patterns at birth prospectively associate with persistently low levels of prosocial behavior across childhood, using highly comparable data from four independent cohort studies
Summary
Prosocial behavior, defined as voluntary behavior intended to benefit others (e.g., helping, sharing, and comforting), provides a foundation for social competence and moral development (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). Existing longitudinal studies comparing the stability of DNAm associations across childhood have found that DNAm patterns are (a) highly dynamic over time (Mulder et al, 2021), and (b) more strongly predictive (at birth) of neurodevelopmental and behavioral outcomes related to prosocial behavior in children, including conduct problems (Cecil et al, 2018), CU traits (Cecil et al, 2014), and social communication deficits (Rijlaarsdam, Cecil, Relton, & Barker, 2021), compared to DNAm patterns examined later in childhood. We adopted a dimensional approach to complement our trajectory-based analyses, repeating all steps using continuous prosocial scores assessed at comparable timepoints (6–7 years of age) within each cohort
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