Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry

Religion/Spirituality and Neuropsychiatry 59a restricting regimen completely prevents themental retardation. Phenylketonuria is a particularlyclear example of GxE. The environmentalfactor (diet) is necessary for the expression ofthe disease. In contrast to the main-effects studies,GxE studies do not necessarily expect anassociation between gene and behavior/disorderin the absence of an environmental factor.Measures of spirituality and religiousness aretypical examples of complex traits that could beunderstood by GxE studies. As with complexdiseases, the absence of perfect concordance inmonozygotic twin studies indicates a nongeneticcontribution to spirituality. Moreover, fromthe previous findings (see above), environmentalfactors such as hormonal levels (as a reflection ofgender effect), diet, drugs, region of origin, andso on seem to play a key role in the comprehensionof this trait.A great deal has been learned about the role ofgenetic influences on personality in recent years,but this has raised many additional questions,including those concerning the influence of environmentalfactors and the nature of their interactionin spirituality. How environmental factors,such as diet, drugs, hormonal levels, and parentalcare, and developmental adversities, such aschildhood trauma or stressful life events, interactwith genes to modulate measures of spiritualityshould be a subject for further research.5.2. Gene-Environment CorrelationFollowing recent findings of genetic sensitivity toenvironmental factors, most studies investigatinggene-environment interplay focused on GxE.However, few of them were interested in geneenvironmentcorrelation (rGE) or even tried toidentify one in their samples. rGE typically reflectsgenetic differences in exposure to particular environments.As mentioned above, GxE refers to theinfluence of environment on the expression of onegiven gene. rGE, in contrast, refers to the geneticinfluences on environmental exposure. As earlyas the 1960s, personality researchers discussedthe role of the person in producing her or hisenvironment.(67 ) The person’s behavior was notseen as a consequence of solely situational contexts.In their view, it was suggested that people’spersonalities influence the way others respond tothem and, in this way, influence the choice of how,where, and with whom they were going to interact.As previously discussed, and based on severalstudies showing the importance of the geneticcomponent on individual differences in personality,we suggest that the genetically driven wayan individual is going to behave will influencethis individual’s exposure to a particular environment.In the end, such interactions betweengene and environmental influences could makecertain environmental influences heritable. Thisis referred to as rGE.(68 )If we take the example of spirituality, there arethree different types of rGE.5.2.1. The Passive rGEPassive rGE refers to the interaction betweenthe environment in which a child is raised and thegenes he inherits from his parents. For example,a child carrying a gene susceptible to spiritualitymay grow in a family with high spirituality, whichwill in turn elicit the expression of genes of spiritualityin that child. Because parents who showa sense of spirituality (which has been shown tobe heritable, see above) tend to elicit spiritualityin their children, a highly religious environmentmight be a marker for the genetic vulnerabilityparents transmitted to their child rather than acausal risk factor for child spirituality.5.2.2. The Evocative rGEEvocative rGE refers to the association betweenthe individual’s genetically influenced behavior andthe reaction of others to that individual’s behavior.For example, an individual who is geneticallydriven to behave in a spiritual way will attract theattention of other like-minded people. The latterwill then bring him into a spiritual environment.For example, one can find that good copingamong schizophrenic subjects is the result of aninteraction between a genetic polymorphism anda religious environment. This interaction couldbe, in fact, the reflection of a hidden evocativerGE. In the latter, a schizophrenic subject may,