A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has identified six loci or regions of the human genome that are significantly linked to personality traits, report researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine in this week’s advance online publication of Nature Genetics. The findings also show correlations with psychiatric disorders.
“Although personality traits are heritable, it has been difficult to characterize genetic variants associated with personality until recent, large-scale GWAS,” said senior author Chi-Hua Chen, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Radiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Five psychological factors are commonly used to measure individual differences in personality:
Psychologists and others define personality phenotypes—sets of observable characteristics—based upon quantitative scoring of these five factors. Past meta-analyses of twin and family studies have attributed approximately 40 percent of variance in personality to genetic factors. GWAS, which look for genetic variations across a large sampling of people, have discovered several variants associated with the five factors.
In their new paper, Chen and colleagues analyzed genetic variations among the five personality traits and six psychiatric disorders, using data from 23andMe, a privately held personal genomics and biotechnology company, the Genetics of Personality Consortium, a European-based collaboration of GWAS focusing on personality questions, UK Biobank and deCODE Genetics, an Iceland-based human genetics company.
The researchers found, for example, that extraversion was associated with variants in the gene WSCD2 and near gene PCDH15; neuroticism was associated with variants on chromosome 8p23.1 and gene L3MBTL2. Personality traits were largely separated genetically from psychiatric disorders, except for neuroticism and openness to experience, which clustered in the same genomic regions as the disorders… Read More>>
Source: Medical Xpress
