Naturalistic Experimental Designs as Tools for Understanding the Role of Genes and the Environment in Prevention Research.
- Authors
- Leve, Leslie D; Neiderhiser, Jenae M; Harold, Gordon T; Natsuaki, Misaki N; Bohannan, Brendan J M; Cresko, William A
- Year
- 2018
- Journal
- Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research
- PMID
- 28093649
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11121-017-0746-8
- PMCID
- PMC5511771
Before genetic approaches were applied in experimental studies with human populations, they were used by animal and plant breeders to observe, and experimentally manipulate, the role of genes and environment on specific phenotypic or behavioral outcomes. For obvious ethical reasons, the same level of experimental control is not possible in human populations. Nonetheless, there are natural experimental designs in human populations that can serve as logical extensions of the rigorous quantitative genetic experimental designs used by animal and plant researchers. Applying concepts such as cross-fostering and common garden rearing approaches from the life science discipline, we describe human designs that can serve as naturalistic proxies for the controlled quantitative genetic experiments facilitated in life sciences research. We present the prevention relevance of three such human designs: (1) children adopted at birth by parents to whom they are not genetically related (common garden approach); (2) sibling designs where one sibling is reared from birth with unrelated adoptive parents and the other sibling is reared from birth by the biological mother of the sibling pair (cross-fostering approach); and (3) in vitro fertilization designs, including egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation, and surrogacy (prenatal cross-fostering approach). Each of these designs allows for differentiation of the effects of the prenatal and/or postnatal rearing environment from effects of genes shared between parent and child in naturalistic ways that can inform prevention efforts. Example findings from each design type are provided and conclusions drawn about the relevance of naturalistic genetic designs to prevention science.
The Role of Naturalistic Experimental Designs in Guiding Genetically Informed Intervention Targets.
| # | Section | Preview |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | The Urgency of Pursuing Genetically-Informed Prevention Research with Naturalistic Experimental Designs | Next, because each of the genetic designs described here leverages data from genetically-related… |
| 41 | The Urgency of Pursuing Genetically-Informed Prevention Research with Naturalistic Experimental Designs | Such an approach is not without challenges, including the need to design an intervention that could… |
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In this knowledge base
| Title | Year | PMID |
|---|---|---|
| Commentary for Special Issue of Prevention Science "Using Genetics in Prevention: Science Fiction or Science Fact?". | 2018 | 28735446 |
External
| Title | Authors | Journal | Year | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prenatal depression outcomes in the next generation: A critical review of recent DOHaD studies and recommendations for future research. | van Dijk MT et al. | — | 2024 | → |
| Parenting in the Context of the Child: Genetic and Social Processes. | Reiss D et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| The Potential of Children's Rearing Environment to Overcome Genetic Propensity for Low Reading Achievement. | Leve LD et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| Shared Environment and Genetics Shape the Gut Microbiome after Infant Adoption. | Tavalire HF et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Nicholas (Nick) G. Martin and the Extended Twin Model. | Maes HH | — | 2020 | → |
| Using a sibling-adoption design to parse genetic and environmental influences on children's body mass index (BMI). | Tavalire HF et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Longitudinal examination of pathways to peer problems in middle childhood: A siblings-reared-apart design. | Leve LD et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Siblings reared apart: A sibling comparison study on rearing environment differences. | Natsuaki MN et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| The Early Growth and Development Study: A Dual-Family Adoption Study from Birth Through Adolescence. | Leve LD et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Utilising Genetically-Informed Research Designs to Better Understand Family Processes and Child Development: Implications for Adoption and Foster Care Focused Interventions. | Sellers R et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Commentary for Special Issue of Prevention Science "Using Genetics in Prevention: Science Fiction or Science Fact?" | Dick DM | — | 2018 | → |
| The Implications of Genetics for Prevention and Intervention Programming. | Musci RJ et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| Using an adoption-biological family design to examine associations between maternal trauma, maternal depressive symptoms, and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. | Grabow AP et al. | — | 2017 | → |