Speaker
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Camille WilliamsPost-doctoral fellow - Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistiques (LSCP) - École Normale Supérieure - Paris
Leveraging genomic data to study the etiology of harmful disinhibition, by Camille Williams
As part of the BabyLab team meeting, they will have the pleasure of listening to an invited speaker: Dr Camille Williams (École Normale Supérieure in Paris).
Her talk will be in English and it is entitled :
Leveraging genomic data to study the etiology of harmful disinhibition
Abstract
A young child throws tantrums, defies authority, and disrupts class. A teenager struggles to focus, skips school, and faces suspension. An adult may act impulsively, develop substance use problems, or get into trouble with the law. These are all examples of externalizing behaviors and disorders characterized by harmful disinhibition (i.e., a difficulty with self-regulation) that shape educational, health, and social outcomes across the lifespan. In this talk, I highlight how genomic data can be leveraged to study the etiology of harmful disinhibition. I first show how integrating genomic data across externalizing disorders and behaviors can identify genes shared across them, capturing a broader genetic liability to harmful disinhibition. I then reveal that genes associated with harmful disinhibition are highly expressed in the brain across development, with strong prenatal expression. These genes are particularly enriched in GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons across most brain regions from prenatal development through late adulthood and are implicated in both pre- and postsynaptic biology. Finally, I show how polygenic indices (i.e., individual genetic predisposition scores) to harmful disinhibition are associated with a range of outcomes from adolescence through late adulthood. These include symptoms (e.g., externalizing, hyperactivity), disorders (e.g., substance use, conduct disorder), social outcomes (e.g., educational attainment, school absenteeism), health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, number of sexual partners), and medical outcomes (e.g., infections, pregnancy complications). Many of these associations are robust to confounding (e.g., genetic nurture), underscoring the importance of accounting for genetic predispositions when studying the etiology of behaviors and disorders related to harmful disinhibition.
A young child throws tantrums, defies authority, and disrupts class. A teenager struggles to focus, skips school, and faces suspension. An adult may act impulsively, develop substance use problems, or get into trouble with the law. These are all examples of externalizing behaviors and disorders characterized by harmful disinhibition (i.e., a difficulty with self-regulation) that shape educational, health, and social outcomes across the lifespan. In this talk, I highlight how genomic data can be leveraged to study the etiology of harmful disinhibition. I first show how integrating genomic data across externalizing disorders and behaviors can identify genes shared across them, capturing a broader genetic liability to harmful disinhibition. I then reveal that genes associated with harmful disinhibition are highly expressed in the brain across development, with strong prenatal expression. These genes are particularly enriched in GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons across most brain regions from prenatal development through late adulthood and are implicated in both pre- and postsynaptic biology. Finally, I show how polygenic indices (i.e., individual genetic predisposition scores) to harmful disinhibition are associated with a range of outcomes from adolescence through late adulthood. These include symptoms (e.g., externalizing, hyperactivity), disorders (e.g., substance use, conduct disorder), social outcomes (e.g., educational attainment, school absenteeism), health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, number of sexual partners), and medical outcomes (e.g., infections, pregnancy complications). Many of these associations are robust to confounding (e.g., genetic nurture), underscoring the importance of accounting for genetic predispositions when studying the etiology of behaviors and disorders related to harmful disinhibition.