Exploring the utility of current polygenic scores in capturing resilience

Abstract

The full results are not posted publicly and so were not available as a precomputed polygenic scores within Health and Retirement Study.

Resilience to Stress and Adversity: A Narrative Review of the Role of Positive Affect

“…The Big Five personality traits have also been examined as resilience resources, with evidence that Neuroticism exacerbates the negative impact of stressors on positive affect, while the other four traits (especially Conscientiousness and Extraversion) mitigate this impact. 32 , 47 , 59 A few studies 41 , 44 , 48 have also examined the possible protective role of emotion regulation, finding that those who employ cognitive reappraisal are less negatively affected by adversity.…”

“…The adapted and resilient students reported better mother-child communication and higher levels of support from their teachers; they also had higher scores on the Big Five personality traits (with Neuroticism reverse-scored) than the maladapted students. Similarly, in a nationwide study of almost 10,000 US adults, Bucknor and Derringer 32 found that life stress had a smaller negative association with positive affect among those who reported greater levels of social support; lower levels of loneliness; higher levels of subjective wellbeing; higher scores on the Big Five (with Neuroticism reverse-scored); higher scores on trait measures of optimism, mastery, purpose, and religiosity/spirituality; lower scores on pessimism and hopelessness; and higher levels of educational attainment. The same study also examined genetic data (European ancestries only), finding equivalent moderation effects with the polygenic scores for extraversion, neuroticism, subjective wellbeing, and educational attainment.…”

“…These include social support (given and received), 56 having a romantic partner, 62 teacher support (for students), 47 positive peer relations, 40 parent-child communication, 47 sense of community, 15 family meals, 43 outdoor excursions, 46 volunteering, 66 and cross-ethnic friendships. 9 Other relevant moderators include personal characteristics that relate to social factors, such as loneliness (exacerbating stress) 32 and social support-focused coping style (mitigating stress). 54 As the preceding summary demonstrates, studies of positive affect as a resilience outcome have focused primarily on resilience resources of a personal or interpersonal nature, especially personality traits and various forms of social support or social connection.…”

“…54 As the preceding summary demonstrates, studies of positive affect as a resilience outcome have focused primarily on resilience resources of a personal or interpersonal nature, especially personality traits and various forms of social support or social connection. Aside from these resources, we note that only a single study has examined each of the following moderators of the link between adversity and positive affect: physical exercise, 14 educational attainment, 32 daily routines, 75 vagal suppression, 10 and low heart rate reactivity. 20 In addition, a small number of studies have examined whether a given form of adversity can moderate its own impact (or the impact of other forms of adversity) on positive affect, with mixed findings.…”

Stress vulnerability and resilience in children facing COVID-19-related discrimination: A quasi-experimental study using polygenic, brain, and sociodemographic data

“…Yet, accurately modeling an individual’s stress response, considering the complex interplay of multiple factors, and identifying the main contributors to resilience or vulnerability remain challenging. This complexity has also led to inconsistent findings, such as the debated protective role of community support against social stressors in adolescents 31–33 and the contested significance of amygdala morphology 29, 34–36 and polygenic risk scores 37 . To address these challenges, our research aims to analyze the multivariate interactions among diverse factors, utilizing the extensive Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) dataset, the largest longitudinal study of children in the United States 38 .…”