Consistent effects of the genetics of happiness across the lifespan and ancestries in multiple cohorts

Abstract

Happiness is a fundamental human affective trait, but its biological basis is not well understood. Using a novel approach, we construct LDpred-inf polygenic scores of a general happiness measure in 2 cohorts: the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort (N = 15,924, age range 9.23–11.8 years), the Add Health cohort (N = 9129, age range 24.5–34.7) to determine associations with several well-being and happiness measures. Additionally, we investigated associations between genetic scores for happiness and brain structure in ABCD (N = 9626, age range (8.9–11) and UK Biobank (N = 16,957, age range 45–83). We detected significant (p.FDR < 0.05) associations between higher genetic scores vs. several well-being measures (best r2 = 0.019) in children of multiple ancestries in ABCD and small yet significant correlations with a happiness measure in European participants in Add Health (r2 = 0.004). Additionally, we show significant associations between lower genetic scores for happiness with smaller structural brain phenotypes in a white British subsample of UK Biobank and a white sub-sample group of ABCD. We demonstrate that the genetic basis for general happiness level appears to have a consistent effect on happiness and wellbeing measures throughout the lifespan, across multiple ancestral backgrounds, and multiple brain structures.