Nicholas G Martins
Biographic Data
| ID | 169456 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicholas G Martins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicholas G |
| FAMILY NAME | Martins |
| SIGNATURE | MARTINS N G |
| AFFILIATIONS | QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4069-8020 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 78 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 814 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 78 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Predicting adolescent disordered eating and behaviours: Exploring environmental moderators of polygenic risk
BACKGROUND: Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the risk of developing disordered eating, with twin studies demonstrating environmental factors moderate genetic susceptibility. To date, gene-environment interactions leveraging polygenic risk scores (PRS) have not been studied in disordered eating phenotypes beyond anorexia nervosa (AN). This study investigated if polygenic risk for AN interacts with established environmental eati…
Associations between common genetic variants and income provide insights about the socio-economic health gradient
We conducted a genome-wide association study on income among individuals of European descent ( N = 668,288) to investigate the relationship between socio-economic status and health disparities. We identified 162 genomic loci associated with a common genetic factor underlying various income measures, all with small effect sizes (the Income Factor). Our polygenic index captures 1–5% of income variance, with only one fourth due to direct genetic eff…
Genetics of monozygotic twins reveals the impact of environmental sensitivity on psychiatric and neurodevelopmental phenotypes
Individual sensitivity to environmental exposures may be genetically influenced. This genotype-by-environment interplay implies differences in phenotypic variance across genotypes, but these variants have proven challenging to detect. Genome-wide association studies of monozygotic twin differences are conducted through family-based variance analyses, which are more robust to the systemic biases that impact population-based methods. We combined da…
Genome-wide analysis identifies genetic effects on reproductive success and ongoing natural selection at the Fads locus
Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals
We conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment (EA) in a sample of ~3 million individuals and identify 3,952 approximately uncorrelated genome-wide-significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A genome-wide polygenic predictor, or polygenic index (PGI), explains 12–16% of EA variance and contributes to risk prediction for ten diseases. Direct effects (i.e., controlling for parental PGIs) explain roughly half th…
Evaluation of brief online interventions to increase sense of purpose for fathers living in the United States
Financial strain moderates genetic influences on self-rated health: Support for Diathesis-Stress Model of Gene-Environment Interplay
sex, and financial strain moderators indicated significant financial strain moderation of genetic influences on self-rated health. Moderation results did not differ across sex or country. Genetic variance for SRH increased as financial strain increased, matching the predictions of the diathesis-stress and social comparison models for components of variance. Under these models, environmental improvements would be expected to reduce genetically bas…
Potential Genetic Overlap Between Insomnia and Sleep Symptoms in Major Depressive Disorder: A Polygenic Risk Score Analysis
Background: The prevalence of insomnia and hypersomnia in depressed individuals is substantially higher than that found in the general population. Unfortunately, these concurrent sleep problems can have profound effects on the disease course. Although the full biology of sleep remains to be elucidated, a recent genome-wide association (GWAS) of insomnia, and other sleep traits in over 1 million individuals was recently published and provides many…
Comorbid Chronic Pain and Depression: Shared Risk Factors and Differential Antidepressant Effectiveness
The bidirectional relationship between depression and chronic pain is well-recognized, but their clinical management remains challenging. Here we characterize the shared risk factors and outcomes for their comorbidity in the Australian Genetics of Depression cohort study ( N = 13,839). Participants completed online questionnaires about chronic pain, psychiatric symptoms, comorbidities, treatment response and general health. Logistic regression mo…
Identification of 371 genetic variants for age at first sex and birth linked to externalising behaviour
Symptom-level modelling unravels the shared genetic architecture of anxiety and depression
Genome-wide association study identifies 48 common genetic variants associated with handedness
Handedness has been extensively studied because of its relationship with language and the over-representation of left-handers in some neurodevelopmental disorders. Using data from the UK Biobank, 23andMe and the International Handedness Consortium, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of handedness (N = 1,766,671). We found 41 loci associated (P < 5 × 10−8) with left-handedness and 7 associated with ambidexterity. Tissue-enrichmen…
Discovery of the first genome-wide significant risk loci for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a highly heritable childhood behavioral disorder affecting 5% of children and 2.5% of adults. Common genetic variants contribute substantially to ADHD susceptibility, but no variants have been robustly associated with ADHD. We report a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 20,183 individuals diagnosed with ADHD and 35,191 controls that identifies variants surpassing genome-wide significance in…
Neuroticism as a Predictor of Frailty in Old Age: A Genetically Informative Approach
OBJECTIVE: Neuroticism is associated with poor health outcomes, but its contribution to the accumulation of health deficits in old age, that is, the frailty index, is largely unknown. We aimed to explore associations between neuroticism and frailty cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and to investigate the contribution of shared genetic influences. METHODS: Data were derived from the UK Biobank (UKB; n = 274,951), the Australian Over 50's Study…
A behavior genetic analysis of the relationship between humor styles and depression
The present study examined the relationship between humor styles and depression using two methods of examination: (1) the mean humor style differences between individuals who reported that they had been diagnosed with depression versus those who did not report being depressed; and (2) the phenotypic, genetic, and environmental correlations between humor styles and a short scale assessing depressed affect created from preexisting measures in archi…
The Relationship Between Adolescents’ Personality and Neurasthenia: A Comparison of Australian and Chinese
The aim of the present study was to examine the cross-cultural differences in the relationship between personality traits and neurasthenia across early adolescence. The participants were from Australia and China. Adolescents’ personality was measured by the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and neurasthenia was measured by the Somatic and Psychological Health Report. Structural equation modeling showed that neuroticism significantly predi…
A behavior genetic analysis of personality and loneliness
New alcohol-related genes suggest shared genetic mechanisms with neuropsychiatric disorders
Excessive alcohol consumption is one of the main causes of death and disability worldwide. Alcohol consumption is a heritable complex trait. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of gram/day (g/d) alcohol consumption in UK-Biobank, AlcGen and CHARGE+ consortia accumulating 480,842 people of European descent to decipher the genetic architecture of alcohol intake. We identified 46 novel, common loci, and investigate…
Genome-wide association analyses identify 44 risk variants and refine the genetic architecture of major depression
The effect of child maltreatment on illegal and problematic behaviour: New evidence on the ‘cycle of violence’ using twins data
Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations: Testing Moral Foundations as a Theory of Political Ideology
Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically …
Hidden heritability due to heterogeneity across seven populations
Meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies, which dominate genetic discovery, are based on data from diverse historical time periods and populations. Genetic scores derived from genome-wide association studies explain only a fraction of the heritability estimates obtained from whole-genome studies on single populations, known as the ‘hidden heritability’ puzzle. Using seven sampling populations (n = 35,062), we test whether hidden heritabil…
Genetic evidence of assortative mating in humans
Facial averageness and genetic quality: Testing heritability, genetic correlation with attractiveness, and the paternal age effect
Genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism identified through genome-wide analyses
Genetic and Environmental Transmission of Political Attitudes Over a Life Time
Recently political scientists have looked anew at the source of political preferences and find support for the heuristic that political attitudes and behaviors are influenced by endogenous factors. The present research attempts to characterize how the transmission of political orientations develops over the life course. Using longitudinal data collected on twins throughout childhood and adolescence combined with cross-sectional data from adult tw…
The Politics of Mate Choice
Recent research has found a surprising degree of homogeneity in the personal political communication network of individuals but this work has focused largely on the tendency to sort into likeminded social, workplace, and residential political contexts. We extend this line of research into one of the most fundamental and consequential of political interactions—that between sexual mates. Using data on thousands of spouse pairs in the United States,…
Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample
We recruited twins systematically from the Australian Twin Registry and assessed their sexual orientation and 2 related traits: childhood gender nonconformity and continuous gender identity. Men and women differed in their distributions of sexual orientation, with women more likely to have slight-to-moderate degrees of homosexual attraction, and men more likely to have high degrees of homosexual attraction. Twin concordances for nonheterosexual o…
Not by Twins Alone: Using the Extended Family Design to Investigate Genetic Influence on Political Beliefs
Variance components estimates of political and social attitudes suggest a substantial level of genetic influence, but the results have been challenged because they rely on data from twins only. In this analysis, we include responses from parents and nontwin full siblings of twins, account for measurement error by using a panel design, and estimate genetic and environmental variance by maximum‐likelihood structural equation modeling. By doing so, …
Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations: Testing Moral Foundations as a Theory of Political Ideology
Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically …
Is There a “Party” in Your Genes
Utilizing quantitative genetic models, the authors examine the sources of party identification and the intensity of that identification. The results indicate genes exert little, if any, influence on party identification, directly or indirectly through covariates. However, we find that genes appear to play a pivotal role in shaping the strength of an individual’s party identification. Together with recent examinations of political attitudes and vo…
A Genetic Basis for Social Trust
A Genome-Wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes
The assumption that the transmission of social behaviors and political preferences is purely cultural has been challenged repeatedly over the last 40 years by the combined evidence of large studies of adult twins and their relatives, adoption studies, and twins reared apart. Variance components and path modeling analyses using data from extended families quantified the overall genetic influence on political attitudes, but few studies have attempt…
The Different Effects of Gender and Sex on Vote Choice
Explanations for differences in political preferences between men and women continue to be debated, generating more heat than light in attempts to locate their source and potential influence. The reason for this confusion rests on the lack of conceptual clarity concerning the difference between sex, typically referring to biological differences, and gender, assumed to result from socialization, and the difference these constructs might elicit in …
A genetically informed study of the processes underlying the association between parental marital instability and offspring adjustment
Parental divorce is associated with problematic offspring adjustment, but the relation may be due to shared genetic or environmental factors. One way to test for these confounds is to study offspring of twins discordant for divorce. The current analyses used this design to separate the mechanisms responsible for the association between parental divorce, experienced either before or after the age of 16, and offspring well-being. The results were c…
Genetic evidence of assortative mating in humans
Do individual differences in sociosexuality represent genetic or environmentally contingent strategies? Evidence from the Australian twin registry
Although men are substantially more interested than women in casual sex, there is ample variation in this trait (sociosexuality) within both sexes. One theory hypothesizes that within-sex sociosexual variation results from genetic variation maintained by frequency-dependent selection. If so, sociosexuality should be substantially heritable. A competing theory is that children acquire their mating strategy after observing their parents' relationsh…
The Subtlety of Sex-Atypicality
Hidden heritability due to heterogeneity across seven populations
Meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies, which dominate genetic discovery, are based on data from diverse historical time periods and populations. Genetic scores derived from genome-wide association studies explain only a fraction of the heritability estimates obtained from whole-genome studies on single populations, known as the ‘hidden heritability’ puzzle. Using seven sampling populations (n = 35,062), we test whether hidden heritabil…
Family structure and age at menarche: A children-of-twins approach
Girls who grow up in households with an unrelated adult male reach menarche earlier than peers, a finding hypothesized to be an evolutionary strategy for families under stress. The authors tested the alternative hypothesis that nonrandom selection into stepfathering due to shared environmental and/or genetic predispositions creates a spurious relation between stepfathering and early menarche. Using the unique controls for genetic and shared envir…
Sexual Orientation and Psychiatric Vulnerability: A Twin Study of Neuroticism and Psychoticism
Identification of 371 genetic variants for age at first sex and birth linked to externalising behaviour
A Genetically Informed Study of the Intergenerational Transmission of Marital Instability
Environmental or genetic influences, or both could account for the increased risk of divorce among the offspring of separated parents. Previous studies have used covariates to statistically control for confounds, but the present research is the first genetically informed study of the topic. The investigation used the Children of Twins Design with twins, their spouses, and their young adult offspring (n = 2,310) from the Australian Twin Registry t…
Population Differences in Finger-Length Ratios: Ethnicity or Latitude
Taxometric analyses of sexual orientation and gender identity
Taxa are nonarbitrary classes whose existence is an empirical question and not a matter of mere semantic convenience. Taxometric procedures detect whether numerical relations between purported indicators of conjectured taxa bear the hallmarks of true taxa. On the basis of theoretical considerations, the current study tested whether taxa underlie sexual orientation and related measures of gender identity. Two taxometric procedures, maximum covaria…
A behavior genetic analysis of personality and loneliness
How Accurate Is the Family History Method for Assessing Siblings' Sexual Orientation
The general factor of personality: Questions and elaborations
Testing a model for the genetic structure of personality: A comparison of the personality systems of Cloninger and Eysenck
Genetic analysis of data from 2.680 adult .~iantwin pailS demonstrated signiiic:mt genetic conuibutions to variation in scores on the Harm Avoidance.:-fovelty Seelcing, and Reward Dependence SCLIes of Ooningcr's Tridimensional Personality Questiol1Dllire (TPQ).accounting for between 54% and 61 '!& of the stable variation in tllese traits.Multivariate genetic triangular decom~ sition models were fitted to determine the extent to wbidl the TPQ asse…
Genome-wide analysis identifies genetic effects on reproductive success and ongoing natural selection at the Fads locus
Genetical, Environmental and Personality Factors Influencing the Age of First Sexual Intercourse in Twins
A study of MZ and DZ twins suggests that cultural differences are less important than individual environmental experiences in determining the age of first sexual intercourse. Certain personality factors are found to be correlated with this trait and there is also evidence that genetical differences may predispose individuals to cross this threshold at an earlier or a later age.
Environmental and genetical causes of variation in ethological aspects of behavior in two‐year‐old boys
The interactive behavior of two‐year‐old male twins (17 MZ, 29 DZ pairs) with their parents was observed in the home and laboratory. Behavior counts, ratings, and experimental measures were subjected to a biometrical genetic analysis. A model which included only within‐and between‐families environmental effects fitted most variables best, except for Instrumental Independence (a rating) and Speech Rate (a count variable) which showed a significant…
A twin study of skin reflectance
Skin colour has been measured by reflectance spectrophotometry on 134 pairs of twins at three sites, forehead, forearm and upper arm, each at three wavelengths, 425, 545 and 685 nm. Tanning is measured most reliably at 685 nm and at this wavelength the heritability is high at the least exposed upper arm site, intermediate on the forearm, while on the forehead variation is entirely environmentally determined. The same gradient is observed, through…
Evidence for directional non-additivity in the genetics of finger ridge counts
A genetical analysis of variation in finger ridge counts of 221 pairs of twins and 80 pairs of opposite sex siblings has been carried out. Negative regression of DZ and sibling pair variances on pair means suggests the action of non-additive genes or unequal gene frequencies tending to increase finger ridge counts. Negative skewness of the distributions supports this view. While models including dominance or epistasis are not a significant improv…
A genetical analysis of covariation between finger ridge counts
1. The genetical and environmental structure of covariation between finger ridge counts in twin and sibling data has been analysed using the method of Martin and Eaves (1977) adapted from Jöreskog. 2. The model for environmental covariance contains a single factor loading on all ten digits but most environmental variance is specific to each finger. 3. For additive genetic variance there is one common factor loading on all digits. There are also f…
Lung function in an Australian population: Contributions of polygenic factors and the Pi locus to individual differences in lung function in a sample of twins
A study of lung function in 203 twin pairs aged 18-34 years living in Sydney detected significant genetic variation in females and males. There was no evidence of family environmental effects in either sex and most of the repeatable variation in females was heritable. However, there was evidence for systematic environmental differences between males affecting lung function so that the heritability was lower in males (about 0.6) than females (abou…
Relationships between minute characteristics of finger ridges and pattern size and shape
We present results of a multivariate analysis of several characteristics of the ridge pattern on the tip of fingers III and IV of the right hand, with special consideration of the minute properties of ridges. The analysis is based on a sample of 38 females and 63 males of European origin. Results of factor analysis for the male sample reveal that pattern type and size load on one factor. Furthermore, there are separate factors for the two types o…
Finger ridge patterns and tactile sensitivity
Tactile sensitivity has been measured in 101 normal individuals (38 females and 63 males) of European origin, and compared with ridge pattern characteristics of the fourth fingertip of the right hand. There is a relationship of tactile sensitivity performance with the type of pattern, particularly in females, and also with the number of junctions within the pattern, particularly in males. The possible origin of sex differences in tactile sensitiv…
Further Evidence for Genetic Influences on Educational Achievement
S ummary . A genetic analysis of Tertiary Admission Examination (TAE) and Australian Scholastic Aptitude Test (ASAT) results for 264 pairs of MZ and DZ twins is reported. Purely environmental models are rejected as inadequate explanations of variation in examination performance and genetic factors must be invoked to obtain a satisfactory fit to the data. Within the portion of the age cohort who are candidates for these examinations, genetic facto…
Transmission of social attitudes.
Data gathered in Australia and England on the social attitudes of spouses and twins are largely consistent with a genetic model for family resemblance in social attitudes. There is substantial assortative mating and little evidence of vertical cultural inheritance.
Psychoticism as a dimension of personality: A multivariate genetic test of Eysenck and Eysenck's psychoticism construct
In this study, we applied multivariate genetic analysis, a generalization of factor analysis and behavior genetic analysis, to responses to items of the Psychoticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire by 2,903 adult same-sex Australian twin pairs. Item loadings on genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental common and specific factors were estimated. The genetic factor structure differed considerably from the environmen…
Testing a model for the genetic structure of personality: A comparison of the personality systems of Cloninger and Eysenck
Genetic analysis of data from 2.680 adult .~iantwin pailS demonstrated signiiic:mt genetic conuibutions to variation in scores on the Harm Avoidance.:-fovelty Seelcing, and Reward Dependence SCLIes of Ooningcr's Tridimensional Personality Questiol1Dllire (TPQ).accounting for between 54% and 61 '!& of the stable variation in tllese traits.Multivariate genetic triangular decom~ sition models were fitted to determine the extent to wbidl the TPQ asse…
The Consistency of Recalled Age at First Sexual Intercourse
It is widely believed that people can remember the age at which they first had sexual intercourse. Questions about age at onset are routinely asked in population sexual behaviour surveys and in clinical history-taking. However, there are limited test–retest data, especially with regard to individual differences in unreliable recall. In this study, telephone interviews and follow-ups an average of 15 months later were conducted with 570 non-virgin…
Participation bias in a sexuality survey: Psychological and behavioural characteristics of responders and non-responders
BACKGROUND: Few studies of sexual attitudes and behaviour have quantified the direction and magnitude of participation bias, primarily because information on non-responders is difficult to obtain in cross-sectional surveys. METHOD: Australian adult twins (n = 9112) aged 17-52 years enrolled in a national, longitudinal research register were asked to participate in a postal survey concerning their sexual behaviour and attitudes. Individual consent…
Nietzsche and Schiller: Untimely Aesthetics
How Accurate Is the Family History Method for Assessing Siblings' Sexual Orientation
The Subtlety of Sex-Atypicality
Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample
We recruited twins systematically from the Australian Twin Registry and assessed their sexual orientation and 2 related traits: childhood gender nonconformity and continuous gender identity. Men and women differed in their distributions of sexual orientation, with women more likely to have slight-to-moderate degrees of homosexual attraction, and men more likely to have high degrees of homosexual attraction. Twin concordances for nonheterosexual o…
Taxometric analyses of sexual orientation and gender identity
Taxa are nonarbitrary classes whose existence is an empirical question and not a matter of mere semantic convenience. Taxometric procedures detect whether numerical relations between purported indicators of conjectured taxa bear the hallmarks of true taxa. On the basis of theoretical considerations, the current study tested whether taxa underlie sexual orientation and related measures of gender identity. Two taxometric procedures, maximum covaria…
Do individual differences in sociosexuality represent genetic or environmentally contingent strategies? Evidence from the Australian twin registry
Although men are substantially more interested than women in casual sex, there is ample variation in this trait (sociosexuality) within both sexes. One theory hypothesizes that within-sex sociosexual variation results from genetic variation maintained by frequency-dependent selection. If so, sociosexuality should be substantially heritable. A competing theory is that children acquire their mating strategy after observing their parents' relationsh…
Heritability of Adult Body Height: A Comparative Study of Twin Cohorts in Eight Countries
A major component of variation in body height is due to genetic differences, but environmental factors have a substantial contributory effect. In this study we aimed to analyse whether the genetic architecture of body height varies between affluent western societies. We analysed twin data from eight countries comprising 30,111 complete twin pairs by using the univariate genetic model of the Mx statistical package. Body height and zygosity were se…
Psychological Masculinity‐Femininity via the Gender Diagnosticity Approach: Heritability and Consistency Across Ages and Populations
Several aspects of the Gender Diagnosticity (GD) approach of Lippa (1995) to measuring the psychological trait of masculinity‐femininity within sexes were explored in four samples ranging from 363 to 5,859 individuals, including Swedish and Australian adults, U.S. elderly, and Australian adolescents. Two ways of deriving GD scales yielded highly similar results. Moderate stability of individual differences was found across ages 12 to 16 among ado…
Family structure and age at menarche: A children-of-twins approach
Girls who grow up in households with an unrelated adult male reach menarche earlier than peers, a finding hypothesized to be an evolutionary strategy for families under stress. The authors tested the alternative hypothesis that nonrandom selection into stepfathering due to shared environmental and/or genetic predispositions creates a spurious relation between stepfathering and early menarche. Using the unique controls for genetic and shared envir…
A genetically informed study of the processes underlying the association between parental marital instability and offspring adjustment
Parental divorce is associated with problematic offspring adjustment, but the relation may be due to shared genetic or environmental factors. One way to test for these confounds is to study offspring of twins discordant for divorce. The current analyses used this design to separate the mechanisms responsible for the association between parental divorce, experienced either before or after the age of 16, and offspring well-being. The results were c…
Population Differences in Finger-Length Ratios: Ethnicity or Latitude
Psychology (55 works) · Biology (41 works) · Social Psychology (35 works) · Developmental psychology (31 works) · Genetics (29 works) · Genetics (25 works) · Heritability (25 works) · Genetic Associations and Epidemiology (22 works) · Gene (20 works) · Cognitive Abilities and Testing (19 works)