Genetic and environmental influences underlying resilience and wellbeing

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By 2030 it is anticipated that an additional two million more adults in the UK will present with mental health problems in comparison to figures from 2013. Understanding the complex aetiology of mental health is a crucial, and pressing area of research, with the ultimate aim of helping individuals to remain mentally healthy across the life-course. A key area for this research is exploring why some individuals are more resilient than others when presented with life's stresses and strains, and the role that genetic and environmental factors play in promoting resilience. Resilience represents a complex interaction between the individual and their environment. Resilience refers to positive adaptation; the ability to maintain mental health despite experience of adversity. The concept of overcoming adversity is what differentiates resilience from positive mental wellbeing, but the way in which people respond to adversity is likely to be dependent upon their baseline mental health, so it is important to study both. Previous work has focused on individuals who do not develop symptoms of mental illness in response to adversity, but these individuals may not have a great quality of life if their wellbeing is still low. Thus the proposed research aims to explore positive mental functioning over and above the absence of symptoms of mental illness.This PhD will explore the genetic and environmental aetiology of resilience, and how this relates to genetic and environmental influences on wellbeing. This proposal is timely because of the availability of new data on wellbeing and life events/trauma in two large and well-characterized samples, which can be combined with new genetic results from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC). Proposed projects:1. To build upon research into the links between victimisation in childhood and mental health in adolescence from ALSPAC. We will explore the impact of victimization on mental health and wellbeing in young adults using new data collected on the ALSPAC young people at age 24. A key aim of this project will be to explore whether there are different degrees of resilience.2. To consider the role of genetic and environmental factors in explaining the links between victimization and later mental health and illness by using twin analyses and polygenic risk scores from the SSGAC, as well as diverse and longitudinal measures of protective environmental experiences and exposures.3. Using new data on traumatic life events collected on the ALSPAC young adults at age 24, we will explore the genetic and environmental predictors of resilience, with a particular focus on super-resilient individuals, who not only avoid mental illness, but maintain good mental health too. 4. To investigate genetic and environmental influences on less extreme indices of resilience by exploring how individuals respond and adapt to more common life events. We will incorporate online social network data collected from a subsample of TEDS twins to assess resilience through emotional changes (coded from tweets) after life events, and how these responses reflect genetic and environmental influences.