Recent researches have underlined that maternal psychopathology can be considered as a crucial risk factor for the development and maintaining of several emotional behavioural problems in children. While several researches have dealt prominently with maternal psychopathological risk and with their outcomes on NOFTT, limited attention has been given in literature to fathers’ involvement in caregiving and to their psychological profiles, while this issue may represent a significant risk and/or protective factor. The present longitudinal study is aimed to further elaborate on the impact of the maternal psychological functioning on the adaptation of the child between the first and second childhood, focusing also on the paternal involvement in caregiving.
Purpose. Eating disorders are complex heritable conditions that can be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors but are poorly studied in early development. The aim of this research was to investigate the association of genetic polymorphisms within dopaminergic pathways with early eating disorders.Methods. We analyzed the presence of VNTR polymorphisms of DRD4 (rs1805186) and DAT1 (rs28363170) in overeating (N=45), undereating (N=48) and control (N=44) young children. We also assessed presence of externalizing, internalizing and dysregulation symptoms by the Child Behavior Checklist and quality of mother-child interactions during feeding by the Italian adaptation of the Scale for the Assessment of Feeding Interaction, respectively.Results. Both polymorphisms were associated with children’s eating behavior, psychological symptoms and quality of interaction with their mothers, suggesting that: a) the DRD4 4-repeat allele behaves as a protective factor, the 2-repeats and 7-repeats alleles as risk factors, for undereating behavior, the general quality of mother-child interaction and internalizing, externalizing and dysregulated symptoms; and b) the DAT1 9-repeats allele behaves as a protective factor, the 10-repeats allele as a risk factor, for overeating behavior, the general quality of mother-child interaction, internalizing, externalizing and dysregulated symptoms;. Finally a gene x gene interaction is suggested between the DAT1 9-repeat or 10-repeat allele and the DRD4 4-repeat allele.Conclusions. Our results suggest a role for DRD4 and DAT1 in an early susceptibility to eating disorders.Level of evidence III: Evidence obtained from well-designed case-control analytic study.
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