Evaluating the Causal Relationship between Personality and Parkinson's Disease

Understanding personality is crucial for monitoring progression and evaluating treatments for Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the causal relationships between personality and PD have yet to be elucidated.

Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were conducted to determine the bidirectional causal relationships between the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and PD. The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method was used as the primary analysis, with weighted median, MR-Egger, and MR-PRESSO implemented as sensitivity analyses.

It was found that genetically determined neuroticism was associated with a decreased risk of PD (OR: 0.84, CI: 0.70-0.99, p = 0.043). However, the other four personality traits had no significant effects on the risk of PD. In the reverse MR analysis, PD showed a causal effect on openness scores (OR: 0.70, CI: 0.52-0.95, p = 0.022), but no causal effects on the other four personality traits. Sensitivity analyses supported the robustness of these findings.

These findings suggest that personality plays a substantial role in the experience of patients with PD and in its management. However, the results should be interpreted with caution, given the restriction to individuals of European descent and the possibility of residual pleiotropy.

This study indicates that neuroticism exerts a protective effect on PD, while PD may lead to lower openness scores. Our findings may aid in developing management strategies tailored to the unique psychological needs of the patients.