A comprehensive analysis of published clinical studies has identified six regions of the human genome significantly linked to personality traits.

This meta-analysis of the Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine also shows correlations with psychiatric disorders. The study was published in the online version of Nature Genetics.

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Five psychological factors are commonly used to measure individual differences in personality:

*Extraversion (versus introversion) reflects talkativeness, assertiveness and a high activity level

*Neuroticism (versus emotional stability) reflects negative affect, such as anxiety and depression

*Agreeableness (versus antagonism) measures cooperativeness and compassion

*Conscientiousness (versus undependability) indicates diligence and self-discipline

*Openness to experience (versus being closed to experience) suggests intellectual curiosity and creativity

Psychologists and others define personality phenotypes -- sets of observable characteristics -- based on quantitative scoring of these five factors.

Past meta-analyses of twin and family studies attribute some 40 percent of variance in personality to genetic factors.

GWAS, which looks for genetic variations across a large sampling of people, have discovered several variants associated with the five factors.

"Although personality traits are heritable, it has been difficult to characterize genetic variants associated with personality until recent, large-scale GWAS," said senior author Dr. Chi-Hua Chen, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Radiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Dr. Chen and his colleagues analyzed genetic variations among the five personality traits and six psychiatric disorders.

They used data from 23andMe, a privately held personal genomics and biotechnology company; the Genetics of Personality Consortium, a European-based collaboration of GWAS focusing on personality questions; UK Biobank and deCODE Genetics, an Iceland-based human genetics company.

The researchers found that extraversion was associated with variants in the gene WSCD2 and near gene PCDH15.

Neuroticism was associated with variants on chromosome 8p23.1 and gene L3MBTL2. It was genetically correlated with depression and anxiety.

Personality traits were largely separated genetically from psychiatric disorders, except for neuroticism and openness to experience, which clustered in the same genomic regions as the disorders.

In addition, there were high genetic correlations between extraversion and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and between openness and schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"We identified genetic variants linked to extraversion and neuroticism personality traits," said Dr. Chen.

"Our study is in an early stage for genetic research in personality and many more genetic variants associated with personality traits are to be discovered. We found genetic correlations between personality traits and psychiatric disorders, but specific variants underlying the correlations are unknown."

The authors note that while the sample size of the meta-analyses was large (123,132 to 260,861 participants in different studies), they used only GWAS summary statistics and can't estimate all genetic variance factors. Other studies also used different methodologies.

TagsGenome-Wide Association Studies, GWAS, Human genome, personality traits, phenotypes, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Dr. Chi-Hua Chen