(Press-News.org) An international team of researchers led by King’s College London have identified genetic factors that may make some individuals more or less sensitive to the environments they experience.
Published in Nature Human Behaviour, the study examined how individuals’ varying sensitivity to environmental factors can influence levels of ADHD symptoms, autistic traits, anxiety and depression symptoms, psychotic experiences and neuroticism.
The researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, University College London, Queen Mary University of London and 23 universities around the world combined data from up to 21,792 identical twins (10,896 pairs) from 11 studies to discover genetic variants linked with environmental sensitivity. This is the largest genome wide association study (GWAS) of identical twins to date.
They identified several genetic factors that were linked with differences in environmental sensitivity within identical twin pairs. The interaction between these genetic factors and environmental exposures could explain differences in susceptibility to psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions.
Dr Elham Assary, Postdoctoral Researcher at King’s IoPPN and first author of the study, said: “Differences in individuals’ sensitivity to life experiences can explain why the same negative or positive experiences may have varying effects on people’s mental health, depending on their genetic make-up. Our findings suggest that specific genetic variants influence how environmental exposures impact psychiatric and neurodevelopmental symptoms.”
Both genes and life experiences shape a person’s characteristics, including the expression of conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADHD and autism. The interaction between genetics and environmental exposures are thought to contribute to diversity in a wide range of traits within all species. But, identifying the genes that are involved in this pathway has proved challenging, especially for complex psychological traits.
Identical (monozygotic) twins are almost 100 per cent genetically identical, meaning that any differences in their characteristics are likely to be due to the environments they each experience. If a monozygotic twin pair carries genes that make them more sensitive to the effects of the range of unique environments they each experience (for example, relationships or traumatic events), they will be more dissimilar to their co-twin, compared to another pair that is less sensitive to these experiences. Using this information, it is possible to scan the genome to identify the genes that impact variations in environmental sensitivity.
Among the genetically identical twins, the researchers discovered genes that explained variations in autistic traits, anxiety, depression, psychotic-like experiences and neuroticism, reflecting heightened environmental sensitivity.
They found that genes linked with growth factors – biological molecules which play important roles in neurodevelopment, immune function and the central nervous system – were associated with variation in autistic traits. Genes related to reactivity to stress were linked to variation in depression symptoms. Genes involved in regulating catecholamines – a group of hormones involved in response to stress – were linked to variation in psychotic-like experiences.
Professor Thalia Eley, Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics at King’s IoPPN and joint senior author of the study, said: “These findings confirm that genes influence psychiatric and neurodevelopmental traits partly through affecting how people respond to the world around them. Some people are more sensitive to their circumstances, and this can be positive in good circumstances but can make life more challenging than for others in stressful circumstances.”
Professor Neil Davies, Professor of Medical Statistics at UCL Division of Psychiatry and joint senior author of the study, said: "This study demonstrates first, the importance of family-based designs and twin studies in providing compelling evidence about how our genomes interact with the environment to affect mental health. Second, it highlights that our scientific research is so much stronger when we collaborate internationally.”
Professor Patricia Munroe, Professor of Molecular Medicine at Queen Mary University of London and joint senior author of the study, said: “The results from this study provide an important step forward in disentangling gene-environment interactions for psychiatric traits and provide a framework for similar investigations in other traits.”
The study received funding from Wellcome and used twin datasets from around the world: the Danish Twin Registry, Finnish Twin Cohort, Murcia Twin Registry, Netherlands Twin Registry, Older Australian Twins Study, Swedish Twin Registry, Twins Early Development Study, TwinsUK and QIMR Berghofer twin studies.
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For more information, please contact Milly Remmington (King’s College London School of Mental Health & Psychological Science Communications Manager). Email: amelia.remmington@kcl.ac.uk
‘Genetics of monozygotic twins reveals the impact of environmental sensitivity on psychiatric and neurodevelopmental phenotypes’ was published in Nature Human Behaviour. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-025-02193-7
Link to article when available: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02193-7
About King’s College London and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience
King’s College London is amongst the top 35 universities in the world and top 10 in Europe (THE World University Rankings 2023), and one of England’s oldest and most prestigious universities.
With an outstanding reputation for world-class teaching and cutting-edge research, King’s maintained its sixth position for ‘research power’ in the UK (2021 Research Excellence Framework).
King's has more than 33,000 students (including more than 12,800 postgraduates) from some 150 countries worldwide, and some 8,500 staff. The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s is a leading centre for mental health and neuroscience research in Europe. It produces more highly cited outputs (top 1% citations) on psychiatry and mental health than any other centre (SciVal 2021), and on this metric has risen from 16th (2014) to 4th (2021) in the world for highly cited neuroscience outputs. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), 90% of research at the IoPPN was deemed ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ (3* and 4*). World-leading research from the IoPPN has made, and continues to make, an impact on how we understand, prevent and treat mental illness, neurological conditions, and other conditions that affect the brain.
www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn | Follow @KingsIoPPN on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn
About Queen Mary
www.qmul.ac.uk
At Queen Mary University of London, we believe that a diversity of ideas helps us achieve the previously unthinkable.
Throughout our history, we’ve fostered social justice and improved lives through academic excellence. And we continue to live and breathe this spirit today, not because it’s simply ‘the right thing to do’ but for what it helps us achieve and the intellectual brilliance it delivers.
Our reformer heritage informs our conviction that great ideas can and should come from anywhere. It’s an approach that has brought results across the globe, from the communities of east London to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
We continue to embrace diversity of thought and opinion in everything we do, in the belief that when views collide, disciplines interact, and perspectives intersect, truly original thought takes form.
About UCL – London’s Global University
UCL is a diverse global community of world-class academics, students, industry links, external partners, and alumni. Our powerful collective of individuals and institutions work together to explore new possibilities.
Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world's best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.
The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year 2024, we are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.
We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.
For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.
We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.
www.ucl.ac.uk | Follow @uclnews.bsky.social on Bluesky | Read news at www.ucl.ac.uk/news/ | Listen to UCL podcasts on SoundCloud | View images on Flickr | Find out what’s on at UCL Minds
About Wellcome
Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health.
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Largest twin study explores whether the environment affects people differently depending on their genes
2025-06-10
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