A research team investigating the interplay of genetic factors and environmental influences in psychiatry has found that individuals with a history of sexual trauma, coupled with a genetic predisposition to mental illness, face a heightened risk of developing schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. Their findings, published on October 30 in a scientific journal, underscore the necessity of assessing social and environmental risk factors in genetic research and call for regular screening of sexual trauma in clinical environments.
The research revealed that polygenic scores, which indicate an individual’s genetic likelihood of developing conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, exhibited weaker associations with mental health outcomes in those who reported experiencing sexual trauma. “Our study suggests that existing methods of generating polygenic scores for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may be less effective in the context of sexual trauma,” noted Lake.
“As polygenic scores are considered for clinical application, our research highlights the critical need to enhance screening for trauma and other environmental risk factors that can influence the interpretation of these scores.”
The team analyzed electronic health records (EHR) connected to genomic data from two prominent hospital systems involved in PsycheMERGE, a collaborative network focused on advancing precision psychiatry in varied populations. The study involved clinical and genetic information from 96,002 participants in EHR-linked biobanks at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (BioVU) and Mass General Brigham in Boston, comprising individuals of European (88.5%) and African (11.5%) ancestries. Using natural language processing, they identified disclosures of sexual trauma, including abuse, assault, and rape, within clinical notes.
In her future career, Lake intends to explore how natural language processing and artificial intelligence can be leveraged to accurately capture social determinants of health from EHRs for inclusion in genomic research. “The effectiveness of natural language processing algorithms is constrained by the data available in medical records, which is influenced by what physicians choose to document,” she explained.
“As a future psychiatrist, I aspire to advocate for the routine screening and documentation of social determinants of health in medical records to enhance clinical care and improve the quality of data available for research.”
Co-corresponding author of the study, Lea Davis, Ph.D., is a former faculty member at VUMC, currently at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Additional contributors from VUMC include Ky’Era Actkins, Ph.D., and Nikhil Khankari, Ph.D., from the Division of Genetic Medicine and the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, as well as John Shelley, MS, from the Department of Biomedical Informatics.
