Real-life helping behaviours in North America: A genome-wide association approach.
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In humans, prosocial behaviour is essential for social functioning. Twin studies suggest this distinct human trait to be partly hardwired. In the last decade research on the genetics of prosocial behaviour focused on neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, such as oxytocin, dopamine, and their respective pathways. Recent trends towards large scale medical studies targeting the genetic basis of complex diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia pave the way for new directions also in behavioural genetics. Based on data from 10,713 participants of the American Health and Retirement Study we estimated heritability of helping behaviour-its total variance explained by 1.2 million single nucleotide polymorphisms-to be 11%. Both, fixed models and mixed linear models identified rs11697300, an intergene variant on chromosome 20, as a candidate variant moderating this particular helping behaviour. We assume that this so far undescribed area is worth further investigation in association with human prosocial behaviour.
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The major haplotype outside Africa was found significantly associated with greater susceptibility to major depression and other related psychiatric disorders and with higher values for self-reported helping behavior.
“The major haplotype outside Africa was found significantly associated with greater susceptibility to major depression and other related psychiatric disorders [55,56] as well as with higher values for self-reported helping behavior [57].”
From Human genetic adaptation related to cellular zinc homeostasis (2023) · cites this paper as [57]
The Results and Discussion report an association between the SNP rs11697300 and self-reported helping behaviour, but do not identify a major haplotype outside Africa or associate that haplotype with higher helping values. I searched the indexed copy for “haplotype” and “Africa”; neither search yielded a passage establishing the claimed haplotype association. The depression clause is attached to other citations, not this source. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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Human genetic adaptation related to cellular zinc homeostasis
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“The major haplotype outside Africa was found significantly associated with greater susceptibility to major depression and other related psychiatric disorders [55,56] as well as with higher values for self-reported helping behavior [57].”
Prosociality and the Brain: Understanding When and Why We Help, Share, and Cooperate
Sandhu, T., Saju, S. R., Wang, R., & Tusche, A. (2026) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-02925-6_24
- Authors
- Primes, G., & Fieder, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Primes, Georg
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2018-01-11
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e0190950
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5764334
- OpenAlex
- W2783404510
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Phaidra (Universität Wien) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Universität Wien (IP547011; molekulares Kompetenzzentrum UW/VU)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- helping behavior, prosocial behavior, heritability, genetic association, single nucleotide polymorphisms, chromosome 20, behavioral genetics, older adults
- MeSH terms
- Chromosomes, Human, Pair 20, Helping Behavior, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Middle Aged, United States, Linear Models, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Principal Component Analysis, Genome-Wide Association Study, Self Report, Genotyping Techniques
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