Maternal verbal aggression in early infancy and child's internalizing symptoms: interaction by common oxytocin polymorphisms.

This study examined whether maternal verbally aggressive behavior in early infancy interacts with oxytocin polymorphisms in developing internalizing symptoms at ages 5-6 and 11-12. In the Amsterdam-Born-Children-and-their-Development (ABCD) study, a large observational, population-based birth cohort, maternal verbally aggressive behavior was assessed in the 13th postnatal week by a self-report questionnaire. Internalizing symptoms at age 5-6 were assessed by maternal report (N = 969) and internalizing symptoms at age 11-12 were assessed by self-report (N = 750). Data on oxytocin receptor polymorphisms rs53576 and rs2268498 and oxytocin polymorphisms rs2740210 and rs4813627 were collected. If the child was carrier of rs2740210 CA/AA polymorphism, exposure to maternal verbally aggressive behavior (10.6%) was positively associated with general anxiety at age 5-6 and emotional symptoms at age 11-12 (p for interaction = 0.011 and p = 0.015, respectively). If the child was carrier of rs4813627 GG (wild type), exposure to maternal verbally aggressive behavior was negatively associated with anxiety sensitivity and emotional symptoms at age 11-12 (p for interaction = 0.011 and p = 0.022, respectively). After exposure to maternal verbally aggressive behavior in early infancy, oxytocin polymorphisms may partly determine a child's vulnerability to internalizing symptoms. PMID: 31065789 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci Source Type: research