New research has found that genetic liability to a variety of mental health conditions may affect an individual’s choice of residence.
The findings of the study were published in the journal ‘JAMA Psychiatry’. The research was part-funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.
First author Jessye Maxwell, a PhD candidate from Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, said: “Our research shows that at some level an individual’s genes select their environment and that the relationship between environmental and genetic influences on mental health is interrelated. This overlap needs to be considered when developing models to predict the risk of people developing mental health conditions in the future.”
“Importantly the majority of those people in our analysis did not have a diagnosed mental health condition so we are showing that across the UK adult population this genetic risk for mental health conditions plays a role in the environment that people live,” Maxwell added.
Using the genetic data from 385,793 UK Biobank participants aged 37 to 73, the researchers calculated the polygenic risk score (PRS) for each individual for different mental health conditions. The PRS assesses the genetic liability across the entire genome of each individual rather than analysing liability at the level of individual genes.
The study revealed higher genetic risks of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia and autism spectrum disorder and lower genetic risk for ADHD in those who moved from rural to urban areas, compared to those who stayed in rural areas.
Lead author, Dr Evangelos Vassos, Research Fellow at the IoPPN, King’s College London and Consultant Psychiatrist said: “The findings on ADHD are particularly interesting as, unlike other mental health conditions, people at low genetic risk of developing ADHD appear to have the tendency to move to cities. This observation highlights the importance of examining the low end of the distribution of genetic liability and not only focusing on people at high risk.”