Research description

We are studying why individuals who receive one psychiatric diagnosis are more likely to receive all other psychiatric diagnoses (i.e., comorbidity). One hypothesis is that it might be beneficial to measure this comorbidity via a so-called general factor of psychopathology. This would allow for measuring both general as well as specific mental health problems. To address this issue, we apply multivariate behavior genetic analyses to the Swedish population-based health registers and the Swedish Twin Register.

 

Current doctoral students

Chen Cen (supervisor)

Mengping Zhou (supervisor)

Christine Takami Lageborn (co-supervisor)

Astrid Moell (co-supervisor)

Postdoc

Yangjun Liu

 

Current research grants (as PI)

Swedish Research Council

 

Selected publications

Associations between psychiatric polygenic risk scores and general and specific psychopathology symptoms in childhood and adolescence between and within dizygotic twin pairs. Chen C, Lu Y, Lundström S, Larsson H, Lichtenstein P, Pettersson E J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2022 Mar;():

The general factor of psychopathology: a comparison with the general factor of intelligence with respect to magnitude and predictive validity. Pettersson E, Larsson H, D'Onofrio BM, Bölte S, Lichtenstein P World Psychiatry 2020 Jun;19(2):206-213

Association of Fetal Growth With General and Specific Mental Health Conditions. Pettersson E, Larsson H, D'Onofrio B, Almqvist C, Lichtenstein P JAMA Psychiatry 2019 05;76(5):536-543

Common psychiatric disorders share the same genetic origin: a multivariate sibling study of the Swedish population. Pettersson E, Larsson H, Lichtenstein P Mol Psychiatry 2016 May;21(5):717-21

Education

BA Psychology, Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University (2004)

MA Psychology, College of William and Mary (2006)

PhD Psychology, University of Virginia (2012)