ArticlePsychological medicine2013
Increased serotonin transporter gene (SERT) DNA methylation is associated with bullying victimization and blunted cortisol response to stress in childhood: a longitudinal study of discordant monozygotic twins.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04824326 (The Effects of Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention on Young Adolescents in Primary School-Α One Arm Clinical Trial), which is not on this map. Cited by 60 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Effects of Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention on Young Adolescents in Primary School-Α One Arm Clinical Trial
Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 206 citations in OpenAlex.
- Longitudinal DNA methylation in parent-infant pairs impacted by intergenerational social adversity: An RCT of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting.Brain and behavior · 2024Trial
- Evaluating the genetic susceptibility to peer reported bullying behaviors.Psychiatry research · 2018Trial
- Bullying as an Adverse Childhood Experience?-State of the Art.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Serotonin transporter gene methylation and cortisol reactivity to acute stress: modeling the pathogenetic and therapeutic effects of stress-related disorders?Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2025Article
- Phytochemicals Modulate Biosynthesis and Function of Serotonin, Dopamine, and Norepinephrine for Treatment of Monoamine Neurotransmission-Related Psychiatric Diseases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- PRKCB methylation: a potential biomarker of MDD with childhood chronic stress, a cross-sectional study in drug-naive, first-episode adolescent MDD.Epigenetics · 2024Observational
- Do Hormone Levels Influence Bullying during Childhood and Adolescence? A Systematic Review of the Literature.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Perceived Parental Support and Psychological Control, DNA Methylation, and Loneliness: Longitudinal Associations Across Early Adolescence.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2023Article
- The Protective Role of Trauma Informed Attitudes on Perceived Stress Among Teachers and School Staff.Journal of child & adolescent trauma · 2022Article
- Evaluating the challenges and reproducibility of studies investigating DNA methylation signatures of psychological stress.Epigenomics · 2022Review
- Cortisol Reactivity as a Mediator of Peer Victimization on Child Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: The Role of Gender Differences.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2022Article
- No long-term effects of antenatal synthetic glucocorticoid exposure on epigenetic regulation of stress-related genes.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Associations between epigenetic aging and childhood peer victimization, depression, and suicidal ideation in adolescence and adulthood: A study of two population-based samples.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Integrative Brain Dynamics in Childhood Bullying Victimization: Cognitive and Emotional Convergence Associated With Stress Psychopathology.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2022Review
- Review
- Designing Ruby: Protocol for a 2-Arm, Brief, Digital Randomized Controlled Trial for Internalized Weight Bias.JMIR research protocols · 2021Article
- DNA methylation signatures of adolescent victimization: analysis of a longitudinal monozygotic twin sample.Epigenetics · 2021Article
- Epigenetic Mediation ofBrain sciences · 2021Article
- Biobehavioral organization shapes the immune epigenome in infant rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta).Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2021Article
- The Effects of Early Life Stress on the Brain and Behaviour: Insights From Zebrafish Models.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundChildhood adverse experiences are known to induce persistent changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity to stress. However, the mechanisms by which these experiences shape the neuroendocrine response to stress remain unclear. Method We tested whether bullying victimization influenced serotonin transporter gene (SERT) DNA methylation using a discordant monozygotic (MZ) twin design. A subsample of 28 MZ twin pairs discordant for bullying victimization, with data on cortisol and DNA methylation, were identified in the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally representative 1994-1995 cohort of families with twins.
resultsBullied twins had higher SERT DNA methylation at the age of 10 years compared with their non-bullied MZ co-twins. This group difference cannot be attributed to the children's genetic makeup or their shared familial environments because of the study design. Bullied twins also showed increasing methylation levels between the age of 5 years, prior to bullying victimization, and the age of 10 years whereas no such increase was detected in non-bullied twins across time. Moreover, children with higher SERT methylation levels had blunted cortisol responses to stress.
conclusionsOur study extends findings drawn from animal models, supports the hypothesis that early-life stress modifies DNA methylation at a specific cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) site in the SERT promoter and HPA functioning and suggests that these two systems may be functionally associated.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.