Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
10051337
TITLE
Sex differences and non-additivity in the effects of genes on personality.
ABSTRACT
New large-sample data show that non-additive genetic effects, probably epistatic interactions between loci, and sex-limited gene expression are significant features of the genetic architecture of human personality as measured by questionnaire scales of extraversion and neuroticism. Three large data sets--new data on large samples (n = 20,554) of US twins, their spouses, parents, siblings and children, correlations for Australian twins (n = 7,532), and previously published twin data from Finland (n = 14,288)--are subjected to an integrated analysis to test alternative hypotheses about the genetic causes of family resemblance in personality. When allowance is made for differences in reliability of the scales, the combined data are consistent with the same model for variation. There are significant amounts of genetic non-additivity for both dimensions of personality. The evidence favours additive x additive epistatic interactions rather than dominance. In the case of neuroticism, there is especially strong evidence of sex differences in genetic architecture favouring a greater relative contribution of non-additive genetic effects in males. The data confirm previous claims to find no major contribution of the shared environment of twins and siblings to these dimensions of personality. Correlations between spouses are zero, and the correlations for very large samples of siblings and non-identical twins do not differ significantly.
DATE PUBLISHED
1998 Sep
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 1999/03/03
medline 1999/03/03 00:01
entrez 1999/03/03 00:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Eaves LJ Eaves L J LJ Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Richmond, USA.
Heath AC Heath A C AC
Neale MC Neale M C MC
Hewitt JK Hewitt J K JK
Martin NG Martin N G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 1
ISSUE: 3
TITLE: Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
ISOABBREVIATION: Twin Res
YEAR: 1998
MONTH: Sep
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 1369-0523
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Twin Res
COUNTRY: Australia
ISSNLINKING: 1369-0523
NLMUNIQUEID: 9815819
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA-06781 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AG-04954 NIA NIH HHS United States
GM-30250 NIGMS NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Diseases in Twins genetics
Extraversion (Psychology) genetics
Female genetics
Humans genetics
Male genetics
Neurotic Disorders genetics
Personality genetics
Sex Characteristics genetics
Twins psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's