Predicting disordered gambling across adolescence and young adulthood from polygenic contributions to Big 5 personality traits in a UK birth cohort

Background and Aims Previous research has demonstrated phenotypical associations between disordered gambling (DG) and Big 5 personality traits, and a twin study suggested that shared genetic influences accounted for a substantial portion of this relation. The present study examined associations between DG and polygenic scores (PSs) for Big 5 traits to measure the shared genetic underpinnings of Big 5 personality traits and DG. Design Zero-inflated negative binomial regression models estimated associations between Big 5 PSs and past-year and life-time assessments of DG in a longitudinally assessed population-based birth cohort. Setting United Kingdom. Participants A total of 4729 unrelated children of European ancestry from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) with both phenotypical and genetic data. Measurements Phenotypical outcomes included past-year assessment of DG using the problem gambling severity index (PGSI) and life-time assessment of DSM-IV pathological gambling symptoms (DPG) across the ages of 17, 20 and 24 years. Polygenic scores were derived for the Big 5 personality traits of agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness and neuroticism using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Findings PSs for agreeableness [beta= - 0.25, standard error (SE) = 0.054, P = 3.031e-6, Delta R-2 = 0.008] and neuroticism (beta=0.14, SE = 0.046, P = 0.0017, Delta R-2 = 0.002) significantly predicted PGSI scores over and above included covariates (i.e. sex and first five ancestral principal components). PSs for agreeableness (beta= - 0.20, SE = 0.056, P = 0.00036, Delta R-2 = 0.003) and neuroticism, when interactions with age were taken into account (beta = 0.29, SE = 0.090, P = 0.002, Delta R-2 = 0.004), also predicted DPG scores. Conclusions Polygenic contributions to low agreeableness and high neuroticism appear to predict two measures of disordered gambling (problem gambling severity index and life-time assessment of DSM-IV pathological gambling symptoms). Polygenic scores for neuroticism interact with age to suggest that the positive association becomes stronger from adolescence through young adulthood.

Automated summary

The study found that polygenic scores for agreeableness and neuroticism predict the severity of disordered gambling, with the latter interacting with age to affect the symptoms of gambling disorder.