Citation

Pezzoli P, Saudino KJ. Lancet Psychiatry 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00042-0

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment remains a global problem despite extensive efforts to eradicate it. It is associated with adverse outcomes. One reason current prevention and treatment approaches show poor effectiveness is the scarce knowledge on victim-level risk factors (we use "victim" in this Comment as the appropriate term used by medical and legal professionals). By studying childhood maltreatment as a phenotype of the victim, researchers have revealed that genes account for as much as 60% of the variation in individual differences in childhood maltreatment. This finding might seem paradoxical as childhood maltreatment is an environmental exposure involving actions inflicted upon the child by another person. However, environmental exposures might be mediated through genetically influenced characteristics of the individual (in this case, the child), a phenomenon known as gene-environment correlation. Therefore, genes that influence the child's characteristics might indirectly confer risk for childhood maltreatment, although this possibility does not imply biological determinism or culpability of the child; these genes might account for some of the heritability of experienced negative parenting. Genetically informed investigations of childhood maltreatment can show how childhood maltreatment originates and clarify whether relationships between childhood maltreatment and putative outcomes are causal or explained by common susceptibilities.

Language: en