This causal link (i.e. a greater exposure to trauma leading to an earlier AAO) is not the sole interpretation although above mentioned arguments favor it. Other interpretations that consider ontology, parental psychopathology/psychiatric disorders or gene/environment correlations should also be considered. Patients with a ‘SS’ genotype could present with a more pronounced emotional bias toward negative stimuli42 and might thus ‘over-report’ emotional trauma. Second, patients with a ‘SS’ genotype might also present with specific neural defects (such as amygdala over-activation)43 leading them to more sensitivity to negative events and thus, here again, to ‘over-report’ emotional trauma (this hypothesis is probably linked to the emotional attention bias one). In both cases, at-risk genotypes could confer greater attention to and/or more reactivity to emotional trauma. Third, patients with a ‘SS’ genotype might present with other psychiatric disorders (mainly externalized ones, such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, impulsivity)232444 that are associated with more behavioral problems during childhood/adolescence and thus greater exposure to hard discipline. Although not definitively excluded, these hypotheses favoring a gene/environment correlation are not sustained in our sample since no difference in CTQ scores was observed across genotypes.
