Psychological, endocrine and polygenic predictors of emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic (preprint)

Stress is an established risk factor for somatic and mental disorders. The COVID-19 pandemic and the related countermeasures severely affect the lives of families. Prenatal stress, dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and genetic factors might impact the well-being of individuals. The present work is part of an ongoing birth cohort study and aims to investigate maternal perceived stress, early childhood HPA axis activity and polygenic risk scores (PRSs) as predictors of emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. All participants are part of the ongoing birth cohort study POSEIDON. Emotional well-being of children (n = 259) and mothers (n = 211) was assessed during the COVID-19 pandemic using the CRISIS questionnaire. Furthermore, associations between previously assessed maternal perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale), children's salivary and morning urine cortisol measures at 45 months, PRSs for depression, schizophrenia, loneliness and current emotional well-being were investigated. A positive association between the child's and the mother's emotional well-being was found. A worse emotional well-being was observed in both children and mothers during the pandemic compared to before. Children's emotional well-being improved over the course of the pandemic, while mothers' well-being worsened. Maternal perceived stress, salivary and morning urine cortisol and PRSs were not significantly associated with the assessed emotional wellbeing. The present study confirms that emotional well-being of children and mothers is negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with differences in development over time. Future studies should examine which mechanisms contribute to stress-related associations and at which age they can be identified.

Interplay between the Genetics of Personality Traits, severe Psychiatric Disorders, and COVID-19 Host Genetics in the Susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 Infection (preprint)

ABSTRACT Background The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, with all its impacts on our way of life, is affecting our experiences and mental health. Notably, individuals with mental disorders have been reported to have a higher risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2. Personality traits could represent an important determinant of preventative health behavior and, therefore, the risk of contracting the virus. Aims We examined overlapping genetic underpinnings between major psychiatric disorders, personality traits, and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods Linkage disequilibrium score regression was used to explore the genetic correlations of COVID-19 susceptibility with psychiatric disorders and personality traits based on data from the largest available respective genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In two cohorts (the PsyCourse (n=1346) and the HeiDE (n=3266) study), polygenic risk scores were used to analyze if a genetic association between, psychiatric disorders, personality traits, and COVID-19 susceptibility exists in individual-level data. Results We observed no significant genetic correlations of COVID-19 susceptibility with psychiatric disorders. For personality traits, there was a significant genetic correlation for COVID-19 susceptibility with extraversion (p=1.47×10-5; rg=0.284). Yet, this was not reflected in individual-level data from the PsyCourse and HeiDE studies. Conclusions We identified no significant correlation between genetic risk factors for severe psychiatric disorders and genetic risk for COVID-19 susceptibility. Among the personality traits, extraversion showed evidence for a positive genetic association with COVID-19 susceptibility, in one but not in another setting. Overall, these findings highlight a complex contribution of genetic and non-genetic components in the interaction between COVID-19 susceptibility and personality traits or mental disorders.

Real-time individual benefit from social interactions before and during the lockdown: The crucial role of personality, neurobiology and genes (preprint)

Background: Social integration is a major resilience factor for staying healthy. However, the COVID-19-pandemic led to unprecedented restrictions in social life. The consequences of these social lockdowns on momentary well-being are yet not fully understood. Method: We investigated the individual affective benefit from social interactions in a longitudinal birth cohort study. We used two real-time, real-life ecological momentary assessments once before and once during the initial lockdown of the pandemic (N~6800 total observations) to determine the protective role of social interactions on well-being. Moreover, we used a multimethod approach combining the ecological assessment data with individual risk and resilience factors to analyze the moderating mechanisms of personality, neurobiology and genes. Results: Social contacts were linked to higher positive affect both during normal times and during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the beneficial role of social embedding. Moreover, this relationship was moderated by amygdala volume, neuroticism and polygenic risk for schizophrenia. In detail, participants with a larger left amygdala volume and higher trait neuroticism exhibited an affective benefit from more social interactions prior to the pandemic. This pattern changed during the pandemic with participants with smaller amygdala volumes and lower neurotic traits showing a social affective gain during the pandemic. Moreover, participants with low genetic risk for schizophrenia showed an affective benefit from social interactions irrespective of the time point. Conclusion: Our results highlight the protective role of social integration on momentary well-being. Thereby, we offer new insights into how this relationship is differently affected by a person’s, neurobiology, personality, and genes under adverse circumstances.