Biology subjects
Hougaard, D. M.
Publications and source records attributed to Hougaard, D. M..
Genome-wide Association Study of Anxiety and Stress-related Disorders in the iPSYCH Cohort
Anxiety and stress-related disorders (ASRD) are among the most common mental disorders with the majority of patients suffering from additional disorders. Family and twin studies indicate that genetic and environmental factors are underlying their etiology. As ASRD are likely to configure various expressions of abnormalities in the basic stress-response system, we conducted a genome-wide association study including 12,655 cases with various anxiety and stress-related diagnoses and 19,225 controls. Standard association analyses were performed supplemented by a framework of sensitivity analyses. Variants in PDE4B showed consistent association with ASRD across a wide range of our analyses. In mice models, alternations in PDE4B expression were observed in those mice displaying anxious behavior after exposure to chronic stress. We also showed that 28% of the variance in ASRD was accounted for by common variants and that the genetic signature of ASRD overlapped with psychiatric traits, educational outcomes, obesity-related phenotypes, smoking, and reproductive success.
A genetic investigation of sex bias in the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) shows substantial heritability and is 2-7 times more common in males than females. We examined two putative genetic mechanisms underlying this sex bias: sex-specific heterogeneity and higher burden of risk in female cases. We analyzed genome-wide common variants from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and iPSYCH Project (20,183 cases, 35,191 controls) and Swedish population-registry data (N=77,905 cases, N=1,874,637 population controls). We find strong genetic correlation for ADHD across sex and no mean difference in polygenic burden across sex. In contrast, siblings of female probands are at an increased risk of ADHD, compared to siblings of male probands. The results also suggest that females with ADHD are at especially high risk of comorbid developmental conditions. Overall, this study supports a greater familial burden of risk in females with ADHD and some clinical and etiological heterogeneity. However, autosomal common variants largely do not explain the sex bias in ADHD prevalence.
Polygenic transmission disequilibrium confirms that common and rare variation act additively to create risk for autism spectrum disorders
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk is influenced by both common polygenic and de novo variation. The purpose of this analysis was to clarify the influence of common polygenic risk for ASDs and to identify subgroups of cases, including those with strong acting de novo variants, in which different types of polygenic risk are relevant. To do so, we extend the transmission disequilibrium approach to encompass polygenic risk scores, and introduce the polygenic transmission disequilibrium test. Using data from more than 6,400 children with ASDs and 15,000 of their family members, we show that polygenic risk for ASDs, schizophrenia, and greater educational attainment is over transmitted to children with ASDs in two independent samples, but not to their unaffected siblings. These findings hold independent of proband IQ. We find that common polygenic variation contributes additively to risk in ASD cases that carry a very strong acting de novo variant. Lastly, we find evide ...