VCU news

By Sathya Achia Abraham

While genes make us more or less susceptible to developing certain behaviors like alcohol dependence, new findings from an international research team suggest that for teens, their environment – a combination of neighborhood, parents and friends - may play a big role in whether or not they actually manifest a problem or disorder.

The findings may help researchers understand how genes and environment influence behavior, and may one day help clinicians determine who may be at more or less risk for developing certain behaviors.

“In a community where there is a lot of stability and monitoring – for example, parents know what’s going, an adolescent is less likely to express a predisposition for alcohol dependence. In contrast, when an adolescent is in a community of deviant friends, there’s more opportunity to express a genetic predisposition for alcohol dependence,” said corresponding author, Danielle M. Dick, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, psychology and human and molecular genetics in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, and the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at VCU.

Dick, together with researchers from VCU, Indiana University, the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, and the University of Helsinki, examined data on more than 5,000 teen twin pairs who were born between 1983 and 1987 from Finland’s Population Registry Center. The study extended the team’s previous work, which found that in teens between 16 and 18 years of age, factors such as having homes in urban or rural settings and migration rates can moderate the importance of genetic effects on alcohol. In the current study, the team examined the influence of these factors on behavior problems at age12, and alcohol use at 14.

They also found that young girls appeared to be more susceptible than boys to the moderating role of the environment on how important genetic predispositions are for behavior problems. The data was compiled through the FinnTwin12, a population-based study of health-related behaviors and correlated risk factors.

This work was supported by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the Academy of Finland, and the Finnish Centre of Excellence Programme.

The study appears online in the Early View of the Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, and will appear in the October issue of the journal’s print version. Read the journal’s news release at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/ace-gat071009.php.