Genetic and environmental influences underlying resilience and wellbeing

到2030年，预计英国将有200万成年人出现心理健康问题，而2013年的数字则是如此。了解心理健康的复杂病因是一个至关重要且紧迫的研究领域，其最终目的是帮助个人在整个生命过程中保持心理健康。这项研究的一个关键领域是探索为什么有些人在面临生活压力和压力时比其他人更具弹性，以及遗传和环境因素在促进弹性方面的作用。复原力代表了个人与环境之间的复杂互动。复原力是指积极的适应能力;即使经历逆境也能保持心理健康的能力。克服逆境的概念是将韧性与积极的心理健康区分开来的，但人们应对逆境的方式可能取决于他们的基线心理健康，因此研究两者都很重要。以前的工作集中在那些在逆境中没有出现精神疾病症状的人身上，但是如果这些人的幸福感仍然很低，他们可能不会有很好的生活质量。因此，拟议的研究旨在探索积极的心理功能，而不是精神疾病的症状。这个博士将探讨弹性的遗传和环境病因学，以及这与遗传和环境对幸福的影响有何关系。这一建议是及时的，因为在两个大的和良好表征的样本中获得了关于健康和生活事件/创伤的新数据，这些数据可以与社会科学遗传协会联盟（SSGAC）的新遗传结果相结合。建议项目：1。以ALSPAC对童年受害与青春期心理健康之间联系的研究为基础。我们将利用ALSPAC 24岁年轻人收集的新数据，探讨受害对年轻人心理健康和福祉的影响。这个项目的一个主要目的是探索是否存在不同程度的服从。通过使用SSGAC的双生子分析和多基因风险评分，以及保护性环境经历和保护性环境的多样性和纵向测量，考虑遗传和环境因素在解释受害与后来的心理健康和疾病之间的联系中的作用。利用在ALSPAC 24岁的年轻人中收集的关于创伤性生活事件的新数据，我们将探索弹性的遗传和环境预测因素，特别关注超级弹性个体，他们不仅避免了精神疾病，而且保持了良好的心理健康。4.通过探索个体如何应对和适应更常见的生活事件，研究遗传和环境对弹性不那么极端的指数的影响。我们将整合从TEDS双胞胎子样本中收集的在线社交网络数据，以评估生活事件后情绪变化（从推文中编码）的弹性，以及这些反应如何反映遗传和环境影响。

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.