{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T17:45:52Z","timestamp":1785433552935,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"Royal College of Psychiatrists","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]],"date-time":"2026-01-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1768867200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Br J Psychiatry"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"S0007125025105059_as1\">\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Social connections might be protective against depressive and anxious symptoms and dementia in later life. The extent to which social connections are heritable versus modifiable in older age remains unknown.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"S0007125025105059_as2\">\n                    <jats:title>Aims<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We aimed to investigate the heritability of social connections and their influence on mental and cognitive health over time among older adults in a longitudinal cohort.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"S0007125025105059_as3\">\n                    <jats:title>Method<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We analysed data from the Older Australian Twins Study (333 monozygotic, 266 dizygotic twins; 65+ years) at three time-points over 6 years. We examined the factor structure and heritability of baseline social connections and their associations with mental and cognitive health longitudinally.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"S0007125025105059_as4\">\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      We found three weakly heritable social connections factors: (a) interacting with friends\/neighbours\/community (\n                      <jats:italic>h<\/jats:italic>\n                      <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                      = 0.09, 95% CI: 0.00, 0.44); (b) family interactions\/childcare (\n                      <jats:italic>h<\/jats:italic>\n                      <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                      = 0.13, 95% CI: 0.00, 0.43); (c) involvement in religious groups\/caregiving (\n                      <jats:italic>h<\/jats:italic>\n                      <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                      = 0.00, 95% CI: 0.00, 0.19). Strong genetic correlations were observed between depressive symptoms and factors a (\n                      <jats:italic>r<\/jats:italic>\n                      = \u22120.96) and b (\n                      <jats:italic>r<\/jats:italic>\n                      = \u22120.60). More frequent baseline interactions with friends\/neighbours\/community were associated with fewer depressive symptoms cross-sectionally (\n                      <jats:italic>B<\/jats:italic>\n                      = \u22120.14,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      = .004) and longitudinally (\n                      <jats:italic>B<\/jats:italic>\n                      = \u22120.09,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      = 0.006), but the associations between social connections and cognitive health were not significant.\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"S0007125025105059_as5\">\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Social connections were weakly heritable, suggesting large environmental determination. Connections with friends\/neighbours\/community were associated with better mental health cross-sectionally and over time.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1192\/bjp.2025.10505","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]],"date-time":"2026-01-20T06:53:42Z","timestamp":1768892022000},"page":"1-8","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The heritability of social connections among older adults and their associations with mental and cognitive health: Older Australian Twins Study"],"prefix":"10.1192","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9957-1916","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Suraj","family":"Samtani","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03r8z3t63","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"UNSW Sydney"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Anne-Nicole","family":"Casey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03r8z3t63","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"UNSW Sydney"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Anbupalam","family":"Thalamuthu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03r8z3t63","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"UNSW Sydney"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ben C. P.","family":"Lam","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03r8z3t63","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"UNSW Sydney"},{"name":"La Trobe University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Vibeke S.","family":"Catts","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03r8z3t63","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"UNSW Sydney"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7685-2977","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Julian","family":"Trollor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03r8z3t63","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"UNSW Sydney"},{"name":"UNSW 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Boker, SM , Neale, MC , Maes, HH , Wilde, MJ , Spiegel, M , Brick, TR , et\u00a0al. OpenMx: Extended Structural Equation Modelling. Comprehensive R Archive Network, 2023 (https:\/\/cran.r-project.org\/web\/packages\/OpenMx\/index.html [cited 8 Mar 2024])."},{"key":"S0007125025105059_ref29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1192\/bjp.bp.114.156281"},{"key":"S0007125025105059_ref36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0003-066X.54.3.165"},{"key":"S0007125025105059_ref24","volume-title":"Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families","author":"Neale","year":"2013"},{"key":"S0007125025105059_ref2","volume-title":"Australia\u2019s Welfare 2023 Data Insights","year":"2023"},{"key":"S0007125025105059_ref39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/alz.061062"}],"container-title":["The British Journal of Psychiatry"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0007125025105059","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]],"date-time":"2026-01-20T06:53:44Z","timestamp":1768892024000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0007125025105059\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]]},"references-count":39,"alternative-id":["S0007125025105059"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1192\/bjp.2025.10505","relation":{},"ISSN":["0007-1250","1472-1465"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0007-1250","type":"print"},{"value":"1472-1465","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal College of Psychiatrists","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}