Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T14:38:05.612Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The boundaries of the internalizing and externalizing genetic spectra in men and women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2013

K. S. Kendler  and
J. Myers
K. S. Kendler*
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA
J. Myers
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: K. Kendler, M.D., Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School, Box 980126, 800 E. Leigh Street, Room 1–123, Richmond, VA 23298-0126, USA. (Email: kendler@vcu.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

The distribution and co-morbidity of common psychiatric disorders can be largely explained as manifestations of two broad psychopathological spectra of internalizing and externalizing disorders. Twin studies suggest that these spectra arise from genetic factors.

Method

Structural equation twin modeling was applied to interview and questionnaire data on personality traits and lifetime psychiatric disorders on more than 5300 members of male–male (MM) and female–female (FF) twin pairs.

Results

The best-fitting models for both the externalizing and internalizing spectra differed significantly in males and females. In males, the externalizing genetic common factor was best indexed by four disorders in the following order: antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), drug abuse/dependence (DAD), alcohol abuse dependence (AAD) and conduct disorder (CD). In females, the four disorders most closely related to the externalizing common factor were, in order: DAD, AAD, nicotine dependence (ND) and ASPD. Personality traits of novelty seeking (NS) and extraversion (E) better indexed the genetic externalizing spectrum in females than in males. In both males and females, major depression (MD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) best indexed the genetic internalizing common factor. Panic disorder (PD) and agoraphobia (AgP) better reflected the internalizing genetic common factor in women, and neuroticism (N) in men. Genetic correlations between the two spectra were estimated at + 0.53 in males and + 0.52 in females.

Conclusions

The disorders that optimally index the genetic liability to externalizing and internalizing disorders in the general population differ meaningfully in men and women. In both sexes, these genetic spectra are better assessed by psychiatric disorders than by personality traits.

Keywords

Externalizing disordersgeneticsinternalizing disorderstwins
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , February 2014 , pp. 647 - 655
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akaike, H (1987). Factor analysis and AIC. Psychometrika 52, 317–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
APA (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition. American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
APA (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Bucholz, KK, Cadoret, R, Cloninger, CR, Dinwiddie, SH, Hesselbrock, VM, Nurnberger, JI Jr, Reich, T, Schmidt, I, Schuckit, MA (1994). A new, semi-structured psychiatric interview for use in genetic linkage studies: a report on the reliability of the SSAGA. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 55, 149–158.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, LA (2005). Temperament as a unifying basis for personality and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 114, 505–521.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cloninger, CR, Przybeck, TR, Svrakic, DM (1991). The Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire: U.S. normative data. Psychological Reports 69, 1047–1057.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Courtwright, DT (2001). Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dick, DM, Aliev, F, Wang, JC, Grucza, RA, Schuckit, M, Kuperman, S, Kramer, J, Hinrichs, A, Bertelsen, S, Budde, JP, Hesselbrock, V, Porjesz, B, Edenberg, HJ, Bierut, LJ, Goate, A (2008). Using dimensional models of externalizing psychopathology to aid in gene identification. Archives of General Psychiatry 65, 310–318.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edwards, AC, Kendler, KS (2012). Twin study of the relationship between adolescent attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and adult alcohol dependence. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 73, 185–194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysenck, SBG, Eysenck, HJ, Barrett, P (1985). A revised version of the psychoticism scale. Personal Individual Differences 6, 21–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartung, CM, Widiger, TA (1998). Gender differences in the diagnosis of mental disorders: conclusions and controversies of the DSM-IV. Psychological Bulletin 123, 260–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heatherton, TF, Kozlowski, LT, Frecker, RC, Fagerström, KO (1991). The Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence: a revision of the Fagerström Tolerance Questionnaire. British Journal of Addiction 86, 1119–1127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hettema, JM, Neale, MC, Myers, J, Prescott, CA, Kendler, KS (2006). A population-based twin study of the relationship between neuroticism and internalizing disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry 163, 857–864.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hicks, BM, Krueger, RF, Iacono, WG, McGue, M, Patrick, CJ (2004). Family transmission and heritability of externalizing disorders: a twin-family study. Archives of General Psychiatry 61, 922–928.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Aggen, SH, Knudsen, GP, Roysamb, E, Neale, MC, Reichborn-Kjennerud, T (2011). The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for syndromal and subsyndromal common DSM-IV Axis I and all Axis II disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry 168, 29–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Jacobson, K, Myers, JM, Eaves, LJ (2008). A genetically informative developmental study of the relationship between conduct disorder and peer deviance in males. Psychological Medicine 38, 1001–1011.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Myers, J, Prescott, CA (2007). Specificity of genetic and environmental risk factors for symptoms of cannabis, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine dependence. Archives of General Psychiatry 64, 1313–1320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Prescott, CA (1999). A population-based twin study of lifetime major depression in men and women. Archives of General Psychiatry 56, 39–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Prescott, CA (2006). Genes, Environment, and Psychopathology: Understanding the Causes of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders. Guilford Press: New York.Google Scholar
Kendler, KS, Prescott, CA, Myers, J, Neale, MC (2003). The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for common psychiatric and substance use disorders in men and women. Archives of General Psychiatry 60, 929–937.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessler, RC, Berglund, P, Demler, O, Jin, R, Merikangas, KR, Walters, EE (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry 62, 593–602.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessler, RC, McGonagle, KA, Zhao, S, Nelson, CB, Hughes, M, Eshleman, S, Wittchen, HU, Kendler, KS (1994). Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in the United States. Results from the National Comorbidity Survey. Archives of General Psychiatry 51, 8–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, RF (1999). The structure of common mental disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 56, 921–926.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, RF, Caspi, A, Moffitt, TE, Silva, PA (1998). The structure and stability of common mental disorders (DSM-III-R): a longitudinal-epidemiological study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 107, 216–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, RF, Markon, KE, Patrick, CJ, Benning, SD, Kramer, MD (2007). Linking antisocial behavior, substance use, and personality: an integrative quantitative model of the adult externalizing spectrum. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 116, 645–666.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, RF, McGue, M, Iacono, WG (2001). The higher-order structure of common DSM mental disorders: internalization, externalization, and their connections to personality. Personality and Individual Differences 30, 1245–1259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, RF, Tackett, JL (2003). Personality and psychopathology: working toward the bigger picture. Journal of Personality Disorders 17, 109–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neale, MC, Boker, SM, Xie, G, Maes, HH (2003). Mx: Statistical Modeling. Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School, Box 980126: Richmond, VA.Google Scholar
Ohan, JL, Johnston, C (2005). Gender appropriateness of symptom criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional-defiant disorder, and conduct disorder. Child Psychiatry and Human Development 35, 359–381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patrick, CJ, Fowles, DC, Krueger, RF (2009). Triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy: developmental origins of disinhibition, boldness, and meanness. Development and Psychopathology 21, 913–938.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenberg, M (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitzer, RL, Williams, JBW (1985). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute: New York.Google Scholar
Venables, NC, Patrick, CJ (2012). Validity of the Externalizing Spectrum Inventory in a criminal offender sample: relations with disinhibitory psychopathology, personality, and psychopathic features. Psychological Assessment 24, 88–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vollebergh, WA, Iedema, J, Bijl, RV, de Graaf, R, Smit, F, Ormel, J (2001). The structure and stability of common mental disorders: the NEMESIS study. Archives of General Psychiatry 58, 597–603.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wender, PH (1971). Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Children. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: New York.Google ScholarPubMed
Williams, L, Holahan, P (1994). Parsimony-based fit indices for multiple-indicator models: do they work? Structural Equation Modeling 1, 161–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuckerman, M (1994). Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar