Publications by authors named "William G Iacono"

Polygenic scores (PGSs) for body mass index (BMI) may guide early prevention and targeted treatment of obesity. Using genetic data from up to 5.1 million people (4.

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Spite sensitivity, or the fear that a person is willing to intentionally take a loss to ensure that another person will as well, may be a key component in understanding persecutory ideation (the belief that others want to harm you). We implemented a co-twin control design to examine potentially causal relationships among persecutory ideation, spite sensitivity, and neural activity and connectivity. Sixty-nine participants (23 monozygotic twin pairs and an additional 23 unpaired monozygotic twins) completed the Minnesota Trust Game-a social decision-making game played asynchronously with an anonymous partner that targets spite sensitivity by varying the incentives of the partner.

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Polygenic indexes (PGIs) - DNA-based phenotype predictors for individual phenotypes - have become essential tools across the biomedical and social sciences. We introduce Version 2 of the Polygenic Index Repository, which expands the number of phenotypes from 47 to 61, increases the number of participating datasets from 11 to 20, and adopts a more consistent and improved methodology for PGI construction. For 16 phenotypes, we leverage summary statistics from an updated GWAS meta-analysis with greater statistical power compared to the original release, thereby improving the PGI's predictive power.

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Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, hold significant implications for cognition. However, connectome dynamics at fast (>1 Hz) timescales highly relevant to cognition are poorly understood due to the dominance of inherently slow fMRI in connectome studies. Here, we investigated the behavioral significance of rapid electrophysiological connectome dynamics using source-localized EEG connectomes during resting state ( = 926, 473 females).

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Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, are a prominent feature of brain activity with broad functional implications. While infraslow (<0.1 Hz) connectome dynamics have been extensively studied with fMRI, rapid dynamics highly relevant for cognition are poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • Psychophysiology can provide insights into the structure and development of psychopathology, with a focus on the P300 component as a marker for genetic risk related to externalizing behaviors.
  • The study utilized data from the Minnesota Twin Family Study and found that blunted P300 at age 14 was linked to higher risk of broader externalizing behaviors at age 17, rather than specific syndromes.
  • Results highlight the benefit of using a HiTOP framework and various measurement methods to better understand the development of mental health issues over time.
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Enhanced educational attainment and intelligence are consistent correlates of socially liberal, nontraditional attitudes. However, it is unclear how such associations unfold developmentally. Here, we propose an interaction effect between college exposure and intelligence on the development of nontraditional attitudes.

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Background: Little is known regarding how disordered eating (DE) relates to perceived actual body size, ideal body size, and their discrepancy. This study examined changes in perceived actual body size, ideal body size, and actual-ideal discrepancies over time, and their relationship with subsequent DE.

Methods: Participants were 759 female twins from the Minnesota Twin Family Study who reported on body image and DE every three to five years between approximately ages 11 to 29.

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Fifty years ago, in a trenchant analysis that challenged applied lie detection theory and science, David Lykken (1974) brought polygraphic interrogation methods to the attention of academia with the hope that these techniques would come under the purview of psychology and psychophysiology. In this perspective, I examine how this application of psychophysiology has evolved over the last half century and how its status has changed for 1) the comparison (control) question test (CQT), used in forensic applications; 2) polygraph screening tests, used to evaluate examinee integrity; and 3) the concealed information technique (CIT), used to assess recognition memory of crime details. The criticisms of the CQT and screening tests advanced by Lykken have been amplified and focused by the academic community over the last half century.

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Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, hold significant implications for cognition. However, connectome dynamics at fast (> 1Hz) timescales highly relevant to cognition are poorly understood due to the dominance of inherently slow fMRI in connectome studies. Here, we investigated the behavioral significance of rapid electrophysiological connectome dynamics using source-localized EEG connectomes during resting-state (N=926, 473 females).

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Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, are a prominent feature of brain activity with broad functional implications. While infra-slow (<0.1Hz) connectome dynamics have been extensively studied with fMRI, rapid dynamics highly relevant for cognition are poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers conducted a study to identify genetic factors influencing the likelihood of women giving birth to spontaneous dizygotic (DZ) twins, uncovering four new loci: GNRH1, FSHR, ZFPM1, and IPO8, alongside previously known loci FSHB and SMAD3.
  • * The study involved a large genome-wide association meta-analysis (GWAMA) of over 700,000 participants, focusing on mothers of spontaneous DZ twins and their offspring, excluding cases from assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs).
  • * Findings indicate that the newly identified loci play roles in female reproduction, and significant correlations were found with various reproductive traits and body size, suggesting evolutionary pressures against DZ twinning in humans.
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An earlier version of this article was published in error. Our prior publication was missing reference to a prior study on this topic. Our prior research has not found an association between recreational cannabis legalization (RCL) and negative psychosocial and psychiatric outcomes.

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  • - Researchers studied the contribution of polygenic scores (PGSs) for substance use (alcohol, cannabis, nicotine) in predicting outcomes beyond just family history of substance use disorders.
  • - The study found that while PGSs were generally effective predictors, their predictive power was influenced by demographic factors and genetic effects from parents, indicating less reliability in twin comparisons.
  • - The analysis showed that both PGSs and family history impacts on substance use were mediated by behavioral disinhibition observed in preadolescence, suggesting that disinhibition plays a key role in the relationship between genetics and substance use.
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  • - The study investigates the impact of alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine use on hippocampal volume in young adults, focusing on differences between sexes and controlling for familial risk factors through a cotwin control design.
  • - Results indicate that greater substance use correlates with reduced hippocampal volume in women but not in men, with significant findings for alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine, although cannabis effects were not statistically significant.
  • - The findings suggest that women may be at a higher risk for adverse effects on their developing hippocampus due to substance exposure, emphasizing the role of smoking and, to a lesser extent, drinking as factors contributing to hippocampal volume reductions.
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As more states pass recreational cannabis legalization (RCL), we must understand how RCL affects substance use. The current study aims to examine the effect of RCL on lifetime and past-year use of cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, frequency of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco use, co-use of cannabis with alcohol and tobacco, and consequences from cannabis and alcohol use. We used a unique, co-twin control design of twin pairs who were discordant for living in a state with RCL between 2018 and 2021.

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  • - The RECOVER-Pediatrics study aims to investigate the prevalence and long-term effects of Long COVID (PASC) in children and young adults, addressing the need for more research in this area.
  • - The study recruits caregiver-child pairs and young adults across 100+ sites in the U.S., focusing on a diverse group of participants with and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infections, and will collect data over several years through various tiers of assessments.
  • - The ultimate goal of the study is to understand the clinical trajectory, mechanisms, and sociodemographic factors related to pediatric PASC, thereby contributing to potential treatments and public health responses.
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Saving disposition, the tendency to save rather than consume, has been found to be associated with economic outcomes. People lacking the disposition to save are more likely to experience financial distress. This association could be driven by other economic factors, behavioral traits, or even genetic effects.

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Background: Psychopathology and risky behaviors increase during adolescence, and understanding which adolescents are most at risk informs prevention and intervention efforts. Pubertal timing relative to same-sex, same-age peers is a known correlate of adolescent outcomes among both boys and girls. However, it remains unclear whether this relation is better explained by a plausible causal process or unobserved familial liability.

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Illicit substance use is dangerous in both acute and chronic forms, frequently resulting in lethal poisoning, addiction, and other negative consequences. Similar to research in other psychiatric conditions, whose ultimate goal is to enable effective prevention and treatment, studies in substance use are focused on factors elevating the risk for the disorder. The rapid growth of the substance use problem despite the effort invested in fighting it, however, suggests the need in changing the research approach.

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The University of Minnesota has played an important role in the resurgence and eventual mainstreaming of human behavioral genetics in psychology and psychiatry. We describe this history in the context of three major movements in behavioral genetics: (1) radical eugenics in the early 20th century, (2) resurgence of human behavioral genetics in the 1960s, largely using twin and adoption designs to obtain more precise estimates of genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in behavior; and (3) use of measured genotypes to understand behavior. University of Minnesota scientists made significant contributions especially in (2) and (3) in the domains of cognitive ability, drug abuse and mental health, and endophenotypes.

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  • Twin studies offer insights into genetic variation and causes of human traits, and the ABCD Study® utilizes four universities to conduct representative research on twins.
  • This paper presents initial heritability estimates for various phenotypes and provides a resource for future behavior genetic studies based on data from 772 twin pairs aged 9-10.
  • The online tool delivers detailed genetic and environmental variation estimates for over 14,500 traits, ensuring accurate data for researchers while controlling for factors like age, sex, and race/ethnicity.
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Despite the substantial heritability of antisocial behavior (ASB), specific genetic variants robustly associated with the trait have not been identified. The present study by the Broad Antisocial Behavior Consortium (BroadABC) meta-analyzed data from 28 discovery samples (N = 85,359) and five independent replication samples (N = 8058) with genotypic data and broad measures of ASB. We identified the first significant genetic associations with broad ASB, involving common intronic variants in the forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) gene (lead SNP rs12536335, p = 6.

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Time-frequency representations of electroencephalographic signals lend themselves to a granular analysis of cognitive and psychological processes. Characterizing developmental trajectories of time-frequency measures can thus inform us about the development of the processes involved as well as correlated traits and behaviors. We decomposed electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in a large sample of individuals (N = 1692; 917 females), assessed at approximately 3-year intervals from the age of 11 to their mid-20s.

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