Abstract
There is evidence for a polygenic contribution to psychosis. One targetable mechanism through which polygenic variation may impact on individuals and interact with the social environment is stress sensitization, characterized by elevated reactivity to minor stressors in daily life. The current study aimed to investigate whether stress reactivity is modified by polygenic risk score for schizophrenia (PRS) in cases with enduring non-affective psychotic disorder, first-degree relatives of cases, and controls. We used the experience sampling method to assess minor stressors, negative affect, positive affect and psychotic experiences in 96 cases, 79 first-degree relatives, i.e. siblings, and 73 controls at wave 3 of the Dutch Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP) study. Genome-wide data were collected at baseline to calculate PRS. We found that associations of momentary stress with psychotic experiences, but not with negative and positive affect, were modified by PRS and group (all pFWE<0.001). In contrast to our hypotheses, siblings with high PRS reported less intense psychotic experiences in response to momentary stress compared to siblings with low PRS. No differences in magnitude of these associations were observed in cases with high v. low level of PRS. By contrast, controls with high PRS showed more intense psychotic experiences in response to stress compared to those with low PRS. This tentatively suggests that polygenic risk may operate in different ways than previously assumed and amplify reactivity to stress in unaffected individuals but operate as a resilience factor in relatives by attenuating their stress reactivity.
Highlights
Recent years have shown significant advances through large-scale collaboration in genomewide association studies (GWAS), which have generated replicated findings on a number of common risk alleles and copy number variants, suggesting that the risk of psychosis is polygenic (Lee et al, 2019; McGrath, Mortensen, Visscher, & Wray, 2013; Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics et al, 2014)
We aimed to investigate whether the associations of momentary stress with (i) negative affect, (ii) positive affect and (iii) psychotic experiences are modified by polygenic risk score for schizophrenia (PRS) and liability to psychosis in cases, siblings and controls
The full Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP) sample consisted of 3684 participants and experience sampling methodology (ESM) was completed at wave 3
Summary
Recent years have shown significant advances through large-scale collaboration in genomewide association studies (GWAS), which have generated replicated findings on a number of common risk alleles and copy number variants, suggesting that the risk of psychosis is polygenic (Lee et al, 2019; McGrath, Mortensen, Visscher, & Wray, 2013; Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics et al, 2014). The environment of children is strongly influenced by their parents or their parents’ genes (Rutter, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2006; van Os, Rutten, & Poulton, 2008) These findings broadly support a liability-threshold model. The current study aimed to investigate whether stress reactivity is modified by polygenic risk score for schizophrenia (PRS) in cases with enduring non-affective psychotic disorder, first-degree relatives of cases, and controls. We used the experience sampling method to assess minor stressors, negative affect, positive affect and psychotic experiences in 96 cases, 79 first-degree relatives, i.e. siblings, and 73 controls at wave 3 of the Dutch Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP) study. Controls with high PRS showed more intense psychotic experiences in response to stress compared to those with low PRS. This tentatively suggests that polygenic risk may operate in different ways than previously assumed and amplify reactivity to stress in unaffected individuals but operate as a resilience factor in relatives by attenuating their stress reactivity
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