Associations Among Parental Caregiving Quality, Cannabinoid Receptor 1 Expression-Based Polygenic Scores, and Infant-Parent Attachment: Evidence for Differential Genetic Susceptibility?

Overview

Journal Front Neurosci

Date 2021 Aug 13

PMID 34385904

Citations 2

Authors

Amelia Potter-Dickey

Nicole Letourneau

Patricia P Silveira

Henry Ntanda

Gerald F Giesbrecht

Martha Hart

Sarah Dewell

A P Jason de Koning

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Aim: To determine if parental caregiving quality interacts with children's expression-based polygenic risk score (ePRS) for the CNR1 gene networks in the prefrontal cortex, striatum, and hippocampus in predicting the probability of attachment security and disorganized attachment.

Design: Prospective correlational methods examined maternal-infant pairs ( = 142) from which infants provided DNA samples at 3 months. Parental caregiving quality was assessed via the Child Adult Relationship Experiment (CARE)-index at 6 months, and attachment security via the Strange Situation Procedure at a mean age of 22 months. The CNR1 ePRSs include genes co-expressed with the CNR1 genes in the prefrontal cortex, striatum, or hippocampus, and were calculated using the effect size of the association between the individual single nucleotide polymorphisms from those genes and region-specific gene expression (GTEx). Logistic regression was employed (alpha < 0.05, two-tailed) to examine the main and interaction effects between parental caregiving quality and ePRSs in predicting attachment patterns. Interpretation of results was aided by analyses that distinguished between differential susceptibility and diathesis-stress.

Results: Significant interactions were observed between (1) maternal sensitivity and ePRS in the striatum in predicting attachment security, (2) maternal unresponsiveness with the ePRS in the hippocampus in predicting disorganization, and (3) maternal controlling with the ePRS in the hippocampus in predicting disorganization.

Conclusion: These findings offer support for genetic differential susceptibility to the quality of maternal sensitivity in the context of the ePRS in the striatum. However, the significant interactions between hippocampal ePRS and maternal unresponsiveness and controlling in predicting the probability of disorganization were more suggestive of the diathesis-stress model.

Citing Articles

Perinatal Predictors and Mediators of Attachment Patterns in Preschool Children: Exploration of Children's Contributions in Interactions with Mothers.

Kurbatfinski S, Woo J, Ntanda H, Giesbrecht G, Letourneau N Children (Basel). 2024; 11(8).

PMID: 39201958 PMC: 11352242. DOI: 10.3390/children11081022.

Validity, Reliability, Accessibility, and Applicability of Young Children's Developmental Screening and Assessment Tools across Different Demographics: A Realist Review.

Kurbatfinski S, Komanchuk J, Dosani A, Letourneau N Children (Basel). 2024; 11(6).

PMID: 38929324 PMC: 11201752. DOI: 10.3390/children11060745.

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