Anneli Desiré Tandberg

• Eilertsen, Espen Moen; Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem; Cheesman, Rosa Catherine Gillespie; Ayorech, Ziada; Ebeltoft, Joakim Coleman & Sunde, Hans Fredrik [Show all 9 contributors for this article] (2026). Multivariate maternal effects across the internalizing–externalizing spectrum in childhood: results from the Norwegian mother, father, and child cohort study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. ISSN 0021-9630. p. 1–13. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.70111. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background From a functionalist perspective, parenting behaviors have adaptive functions and are partly expressions of genetic variation. Maternal genes that have effects on children are often referred to as indirect maternal genetic effects. Indirect genetic effects provide a means for measuring the role of parenting without the need for specifying the relevant parental behaviors. We studied indirect maternal genetic effects to address both the importance and commonality of parenting across the internalizing–externalizing spectrum of behavior problems in childhood. We further addressed how indirect genetic effects impact our understanding of direct genetic effects if not accounted for. Methods Utilizing data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), our analyses involved 42,423 children and their mothers. Both pedigree and genotype data were used to infer genetic relationships. We applied multivariate latent variable models to distinguish indirect maternal genetic effects and direct offspring genetic effects on seven measures of internalizing–externalizing behaviors. Results Our findings indicate significant maternal genetic influences, explaining 7%–18% of the variance across internalizing–externalizing behaviors. A general maternal effect common across behaviors could adequately account for most of the variability. The analyses further indicate that direct child genetic effects appear smaller and more complex when indirect maternal genetic effects are modeled simultaneously. Conclusions By summarizing the effects of parenting with indirect maternal genetic effects, we show a substantial contribution of parents with respect to internalizing–externalizing behaviors in childhood. Although parenting is multifaceted, the effects of parenting are general and can succinctly be described as a single common dimension. Further, our study demonstrates that direct genetic effects appear smaller and more complex when maternal genetic effects are accounted for, highlighting the confounding potential of parental effects in understanding the role of genetic differences in child psychopathology.

• Tamnes, Christian K.; Bekkhus, Mona; Eilertsen, Maja; Nes, Ragnhild Bang; Prydz, Monica Beer & Ystrom, Eivind [Show all 63 contributors for this article] (2025). The nature of the relation between mental well-being and ill-being. Nature Human Behaviour. 9(12), p. 2431–2440. doi: 10.1038/s41562-025-02319-x. Full text in Research Archive
• Dahl, Andreas; Eilertsen, Espen Moen; Cabello, Sara Fernandez Rodriguez; Norbom, Linn B.; Tandberg, Anneli Desire & Leonardsen, Esten [Show all 11 contributors for this article] (2024). Genetic and brain similarity independently predict childhood anthropometrics and neighborhood socioeconomic conditions. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. ISSN 1878-9293. 65. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101339. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Linking the developing brain with individual differences in clinical and demographic traits is challenging due to the substantial interindividual heterogeneity of brain anatomy and organization. Here we employ an integrative approach that parses individual differences in both cortical thickness and common genetic variants, and assess their effects on a wide set of childhood traits. The approach uses a linear mixed model framework to obtain the unique effects of each type of similarity, as well as their covariance. We employ this approach in a sample of 7760 unrelated children in the ABCD cohort baseline sample (mean age 9.9, 46.8% female). In general, associations between cortical thickness similarity and traits were limited to anthropometrics such as height, weight, and birth weight, as well as a marker of neighborhood socioeconomic conditions. Common genetic variants explained significant proportions of variance across nearly all included outcomes, although estimates were somewhat lower than previous reports. No significant covariance of the effects of genetic and cortical thickness similarity was found. The present findings highlight the connection between anthropometrics as well as neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and the developing brain, which appear to be independent from individual differences in common genetic variants in this population-based sample.

• Tandberg, Anneli Desire; Dahl, Andreas; Norbom, Linn Bonaventure; Westlye, Lars Tjelta; Ystrøm, Eivind & Tamnes, Christian Krog [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2024). Individual differences in internalizing symptoms in late childhood: A variance decomposition into cortical thickness, genetic and environmental differences. Developmental Science. ISSN 1363-755X. 27. doi: 10.1111/desc.13537. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The brain undergoes extensive development during late childhood and early adolescence. Cortical thinning is a prominent feature of this development, and some researchers have suggested that differences in cortical thickness may be related to internalizing symptoms, which typically increase during the same period. However, research has yielded inconclusive results. We utilized a new method that estimates the combined effect of individual differences in vertex-wise cortical thickness on internalizing symptoms. This approach allows for many small effects to be distributed across the cortex and avoids the necessity of correcting for multiple tests. Using a sample of 8763 children aged 8.9 to 11.1 from the ABCD study, we decomposed the total variation in caregiver-reported internalizing symptoms into differences in cortical thickness, additive genetics, and shared family environmental factors and unique environmental factors. Our results indicated that individual differences in cortical thickness accounted for less than 0.5% of the variation in internalizing symptoms. In contrast, the analysis revealed a substantial effect of additive genetics and family environmental factors on the different components of internalizing symptoms, ranging from 06% to 48% and from 0% to 34%, respectively. Overall, while this study found a minimal association between cortical thickness and internalizing symptoms, additive genetics, and familial environmental factors appear to be of importance for describing differences in internalizing symptoms in late childhood.

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• Eilertsen, Espen Moen; Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem; Cheesman, Rosa Catherine Gillespie; Ayorech, Ziada; Ebeltoft, Joakim Coleman & Sunde, Hans Fredrik [Show all 9 contributors for this article] (2024). Multivariate parental effects across the internalizing-externalizing spectrum in childhood: results from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study. Full text in Research Archive
• Eilertsen, Espen Moen; Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem; Cheesman, Rosa Catherine Gillespie; Ebeltoft, Joakim Coleman; Sunde, Hans Fredrik & Tandberg, Anneli Desire [Show all 8 contributors for this article] (2023). Multivariate parental effects across the internalizing-externalizing spectrum in childhood: results from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study. Full text in Research Archive

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