MAOA gene variants moderate how childhood maltreatment affects antisocial behavior
Evidence
The specific mechanism — documented in a landmark 2003 paper by Caspi and colleagues in Science — involves the interaction between childhood adversity and a genetic variant in the MAOA gene. Adults who carried one variant of the MAOA gene showed strong adverse effects of childhood maltreatment on antisocial behavior; adults carrying the alternative variant showed weaker effects. This gene-environment interaction was the first molecular evidence that the childhood adversity-adult outcome association involves a biological pathway — not just a psychological or social one. … We found that a functional polymorphism in the MAOA gene moderated the effect of childhood maltreatment on antisocial behavior in males. Among males who had been maltreated in childhood, 85 percent of those with the low-activity MAOA genotype developed antisocial behavior by age twenty-six, compared with 42 percent of those with the high-activity MAOA genotype. This finding does not diminish the importance of environmental factors — childhood maltreatment was the exposure. The gene moderated the response to that exposure. — , The Rod and the Child, 8499
Categorization
- DEFINE: The passage defines a gene-environment interaction and gives the concrete 85 vs 42 percent contrast.
- XREF: connects to: Rearing behavior, not genetic sequence, determines adult anxiety in rat pups — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 6777; ACE dose-response effects strengthen with higher baseline adversity in other populations — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 7085