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Characterisation of age and polarity at onset in bipolar disorder

Jones, Lisa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5122-8334 and Gordon-Smith, Katherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4083-1143 (2021) Characterisation of age and polarity at onset in bipolar disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry. pp. 1-11. ISSN Print: 0007-1250 Online:1472-1465

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Abstract

Background
Studying phenotypic and genetic characteristics of age at onset (AAO) and polarity at onset (PAO) in bipolar disorder can provide new insights into disease pathology and facilitate the development of screening tools.

Aims
To examine the genetic architecture of AAO and PAO and their association with bipolar disorder disease characteristics.

Method
Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and polygenic score (PGS) analyses of AAO (n = 12 977) and PAO (n = 6773) were conducted in patients with bipolar disorder from 34 cohorts and a replication sample (n = 2237). The association of onset with disease characteristics was investigated in two of these cohorts.

Results
Earlier AAO was associated with a higher probability of psychotic symptoms, suicidality, lower educational attainment, not living together and fewer episodes. Depressive onset correlated with suicidality and manic onset correlated with delusions and manic episodes. Systematic differences in AAO between cohorts and continents of origin were observed. This was also reflected in single-nucleotide variant-based heritability estimates, with higher heritabilities for stricter onset definitions. Increased PGS for autism spectrum disorder (β = −0.34 years, s.e. = 0.08), major depression (β = −0.34 years, s.e. = 0.08), schizophrenia (β = −0.39 years, s.e. = 0.08), and educational attainment (β = −0.31 years, s.e. = 0.08) were associated with an earlier AAO. The AAO GWAS identified one significant locus, but this finding did not replicate. Neither GWAS nor PGS analyses yielded significant associations with PAO.

Conclusions
AAO and PAO are associated with indicators of bipolar disorder severity. Individuals with an earlier onset show an increased polygenic liability for a broad spectrum of psychiatric traits. Systematic differences in AAO across cohorts, continents and phenotype definitions introduce significant heterogeneity, affecting analyses.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information:

© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

A pdf file of this article is available to download from this WRaP record.

This paper has a further 170+ authors.

Uncontrolled Discrete Keywords: Bipolar disorder, age at onset, polarity at onset, GWAS, polygenic score
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Divisions: College of Health, Life and Environmental Sciences > School of Allied Health and Community
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Copyright Info: Open Access article
Depositing User: Katherine Gordon-Smith
Date Deposited: 27 Aug 2021 07:46
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2021 07:46
URI: https://eprints.worc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11305

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