Resilience in the face of an impossible task: the joint role of genetic susceptibility and early life adversity

To better understand the developmental origins of resilience, gene-by-environment (G×E) analyses were conducted by interacting genetic susceptibility with exposure to maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) to predict resilient outcomes in 5-year-old children. Positive self-evaluation, hopefulness, motivation, and overall resilience were measured using a challenging puzzle task (CPT). Three different G×E models corresponding to prenatal, postnatal and cumulative MDS exposure were tested in relation to genetic susceptibility (as measured by three polygenic scores). The majority of our findings indicate that for positive self-evaluation, hopefulness and overall resilience, genetic susceptibility combined with exposure to: 1) low levels of prenatal MDS elicit the best outcomes; while 2) high levels of prenatal MDS elicit worse outcomes. Our results also demonstrate that when exposure to MDS is high, children regardless of their level of genetic susceptibility are not motivated to continue with the CPT. Our findings lend support to the differential susceptibility and vantage sensitivity hypotheses.