The role of birth weight on the causal pathway to child and adolescent ADHD symptomatology: a population-based twin differences longitudinal design.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Available evidence points towards lower birth weight as a risk factor for the development of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. We probed the causal nature of this putative effect of birth weight on ADHD symptoms using the twin differences design, which accounts for genetic and shared environmental confounds.

Method

In a large population-based twin sample - 3,499 monozygotic (MZ) and 6,698 dizygotic (DZ) pairs - parents, teachers or twins rated the twins' ADHD symptoms at nine assessment waves (2-16 years). We implemented the twin differences design, which completely accounts for shared environmental and genetic confounding in MZ twins. We tested whether: (a) the lighter-born twins had elevated ADHD symptoms compared to the heavier-born twin

SUBMITTER: Lim KX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6175300 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature