Familial and genetic associations between autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders

Ghirardi, Laura, Kuja-Halkola, Ralf, Butwicka, Agnieszka, Martin, Joanna ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8911-3479, Larsson, Henrik, D’Onofrio, Brian, Paul, Lichtenstein and Taylor, Mark J 2021. Familial and genetic associations between autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 62 (11) , pp. 1274-1284. 10.1111/jcpp.13508

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Abstract

Background Familial and genetic associations between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders have been reported, sometimes with conflicting results. We estimated familial and genetic associations between ASD and nine disorder groups, and explored differences in these associations for ASD in the context of intellectual disability, epilepsy, chromosomal abnormalities, and congenital malformations. Methods Individuals born between 1985 and 2009 living in Sweden on their seventh birthday were linked to their biological parents in order to identify different types of relatives. We retrieved information on all the disorders considered from the National Patient Register. Logistic regression was used to estimate the familial association between ASD and other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders in the different groups of relatives. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate phenotypic (rp) and genetic associations (rg), as well as the contribution of genetic influences to rp. Results The study included 2,398,608 individuals. Among relatives of individuals diagnosed with ASD, there was an increased risk of the disorders considered, compared to relatives of individuals who were not diagnosed with ASD. Stronger associations were detected for ASD without any additional diagnosis of intellectual disability, epilepsy, chromosomal abnormalities, and congenital malformations. The strongest genetic correlation was estimated between ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders (rg = 0.73; 95% CI = 0.66–0.79). Moderate genetic correlations were estimated for anxiety disorders (rg = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.33–0.61), depression (rg = 0.52; 95% CI = 0.37–0.66), and intentional self-harm (rg = 0.54; 95% CI = 0.36–0.71). Conclusions ASD shows familial and genetic association not only with other neurodevelopmental disorders, but also with other psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and intentional self-harm. Family history of ASD comorbid with intellectual disability, epilepsy, congenital malformations, or chromosomal abnormalities is less related to other psychiatric disorders, potentially suggesting a different etiology for this subgroup of patients.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG)
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0021-9630
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 August 2021
Date of Acceptance:	6 July 2021
Last Modified:	02 May 2023 12:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/143273

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