Genetically Informed Studies of Victimization and Trauma PDF

Genetically Informed Studies of Victimization and Trauma 27 November 2023 14:57 Main Ideas Notes Definitions ○ Victimization: ▪ The unjust or cruel treatment of someone, often involving physical or emotional abuse. ▪ The act of deliberately targeting someone for mistreatment. ▪ The experience of bei...

Genetically Informed Studies of Victimization and Trauma 27 November 2023 14:57 Main Ideas Notes Definitions ○ Victimization: ▪ The unjust or cruel treatment of someone, often involving physical or emotional abuse. ▪ The act of deliberately targeting someone for mistreatment. ▪ The experience of being singled out for harmful or unfair actions. ○ Trauma: ▪ A deeply distressing or disturbing experience that leaves a lasting negative impact on someone's life. ▪ An event or experience that causes severe emotional or psychological harm. ▪ A situation that challenges a person's sense of security, safety, and predictability. Notes Notes Intimate partner violence (IPV) ○ Prevalence ▪ 3-13% in Europe; ▪ 1-27% in Americas; ▪ 8-34% in Asia and Pacific ○ Occurs across intimate relationships: dating as well as cohabitating couples ○ Involves both women and men, and in 50% of the times, violence is mutual ○ Intergenerational transmission: evidence of family-level but also individual-level risk factors Revictimisation ○ A small proportion of individuals account for a large proportion of victimization incidents ○ Exposure to interpersonal violence is the strongest predictor of subsequent victimization and trauma ○ Research has overlooked the possible overlap in genetic and environmental risk factors across time points Implicartions for preventio ○ Consider indivi ○ High-risk famili ○ Considering vic ○ Genes are not d ○ Heritability estimates Prevalence ○ Has been declining ○ Global prevalence of trauma: ~70% of adults experienced 1+ (Benjet et al., 2016) ○ Global prevalence of child maltreatment:~22% (Stoltenborgh et al., 2014) ▪ Bullying victimization: 30% (Biswas et al., 2020) ○ Social and economic burden Why use genetically sensitive designs? ○ To understand: 1. What underlies the intergenerational transmission of victimization and trauma 2. Why victimization and trauma are not evenly or randomly distributed in the population 3. Whether victimization and trauma represent environmental causes of mental health outcomes What the heritability of victimisation and trauma means ○ Reflects gene-environment interplay ▪ Greater heritability for dependent (controllable) vs. independent (uncontrollable) events ○ Does not involve victim-blaming ○ Studying individual vulnerabilities can inform prevention Trauma from conflicts: Vietnam Era Twin (VET) Registry Implications for research ○ Elucidate mech ○ Assess and inno ○ Separate scient Genetic risk may be largely consistent and continuing across development (Johnson et al., 2013) ○ Example: Childhood maltreatment & Adult sexual assault victimization (Pezzoli et al., 2020) Genetically informative studies of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ○ PTSD following: ▪ Assaultive trauma (twin results): Moderately heritable and shares substantial genetic risk with exposure ▪ Childhood maltreatment (molecular genetic results): shares moderate genetic risk with exposure ○ Genetic & environmental correlations Victimisation/trauma & mental health outcomes ○ Genetic factors partially mediate the relationship between: ▪ Assaultive traumatic events and externalizing psychopathology ▪ Childhood maltreatment and internalizing psychopathology ○ Molecular genetic evidence of: ▪ Unidirectional causal effects of childhood maltreatment on depression ▪ Bidirectional effects of childhood maltreatment on ADHD & schizophrenia Bullying victimisation and perpetration: Genetic correlations ○ Intentional harm in the context of a power imbalance between the bully and the victim ○ Victims of bullying and bullies suffer from a variety of problems ○ Some engage in bullying both as bullies and as victims ○ Example: Bullying and mental health outcomes Genetically influenced traits may increase risk of assaultive trauma, IPV or bullying through the types of rGe (i.e, passive, evocative) etc) Assaultive (direct physical/psychological harm) vs. Non-assaultive trauma (i.e., accidents, natural disasters) ○ Heritability estimates: ○ Environmental correlations: Genetic vulnerability to experiencing childhood maltreatment: Rationale ○ Child maltreatment: ▪ Remains prevalent (~20%) ▪ Associated with long-term adverse consequences ▪ Most studied in relation to disadvantaged environments ▪ Not successfully prevented Genetic vulnerability to childhood maltreatment: Molecular genetic evidence ○ Warrier et al. (2021) investigated: ▪ Gene variants associated with CM and proportion of variance explained by SNPs ▪ Extent of genetic influences shared between different subtypes and measures of CM ▪ Sources of rGE underlying genetic effects ▪ Causal relationships between CM and later mental and physical health conditions ▪ Results: □ Identified 14 loci associated with CM, based on a meta -analysis of genome-wide studies (N=185,414) □ Found that additive genetic effects based on SNPs accounted for ~8% of individual differences □ Found notable genetic overlap across types and operationalisations □ Found that ~60% of genetic effects reflected reactive or active rGE, based on PGS analyses ○ Mental illness could be one of the genetically influenced traits that increase risk of victimization and trauma Summary Genes and environments might confer risk of victimization/trauma Heritability estimates and rGE processes differ for different traumatic events Exposures and "outcomes” may share genetic and environmental risk factors PSYC0036 Genes and Behaviour Page 1 hanisms of gene-environment interplay Identify high-risk genetically-influenced traits ovate prevention programs (e.g., KiVa antibullying program) tific inquiry from moral discourse on & treatment dual-level risk factors ies may require both parent- and child-level interventions ctim characteristics does not mean victims are responsible destiny: Supportive environments can buffer against genetic risk PSYC0036 Genes and Behaviour Page 2