Duke University. US: Some
children are more sensitive to their environments, for better and for
worse. Now Duke University researchers have identified a gene variant
that may serve as a marker for these children, who are among society’s
most vulnerable.“The findings are a step toward understanding the
biology of what makes a child particularly sensitive to positive and
negative environments,” said Dustin Albert, a research scientist at the
Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. “This gives us an important
clue about some of the children who need help the most.”
Drawing
on two decades worth of data on high-risk first-graders from four
locations across the country, the study found that children from
high-risk backgrounds who also carried a certain common gene variant
were extremely likely to develop serious problems as adults. Left
untreated, 75 percent with the gene variant developed psychological
problems by age 25, including alcohol abuse, substance abuse and
antisocial personality disorder.
The picture changed dramatically,
though, when children with the gene variant participated in an
intensive program called the Fast Track Project. After receiving support
services in childhood, just 18 percent developed psychopathology as
adults.
“It’s a hopeful finding,” Albert said. “The children we
studied were very susceptible to stress. But far from being doomed, they
were instead particularly responsive to help.”
Previous research
has suggested that while some children thrive like dandelions in a wide
range of circumstances, others are more like orchids who wither or bloom
in different environments. The new study suggests that children’s
different levels of sensitivity are related to differences in their
genomes.
The study appeared online today
in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.This is the latest
finding from the Fast Track Project, a multi-faceted intervention for
aggressive first-graders that ran for a decade at sites in North
Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Washington state.
Beginning
in 1991, researchers screened nearly 10,000 kindergartners for
aggressive behavior problems, identifying nearly 900 who were at high
risk, and assigning half of that group to receive intensive help. It was
the largest violence-prevention trial ever supported by the National
Institutes of Health and researchers have now followed participants
since the early 1990’s.
Previous research has linked participation
in Fast Track interventions to lower rates of psychiatric problems,
substance abuse and convictions for violent crime in adulthood.The new
study looks at the possible biology behind those responses. Albert said
these findings could be a first step toward potential personalized
treatments for some of society’s most troubled children. Knowledge like
this might someday be used to help match children who would benefit with
programs they badly need.
Key questions remain though, Albert
said. For starters, while the Fast Track Project was offered to children
of all races, the new findings were limited to white children.
Specifically, the authors observed strong response to Fast Track among
the 60 white children with a common variant of the glucocorticoid
receptor gene NR3C1, a gene involved in the body’s stress response.
Although
children of other ethnicities benefited from Fast Track, the authors
have not yet found a similar genetic clue to help identify which of
these children responded most positively to the intervention.
“That
doesn’t mean such genetic markers don’t exist among children of other
races,” Albert said. “We simply don’t know yet what those markers
are.”That’s one of several important avenues for future research, Albert
said, adding that thoughtful examination of the ethical issues involved
is needed before the findings can be translated into policy.
“It
would be premature to use this finding to screen children to determine
who should receive intervention,” Albert said. “A lot more work needs to
be done before we decide whether or not to make that leap.”