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
11105396
TITLE
Further evidence against the environmental transmission of individual differences in neuroticism from a collaborative study of 45,850 twins and relatives on two continents.
ABSTRACT
We examine the hypothesis that environmental transmission is a significant factor in individual differences for Neuroticism among 45,850 members of extended twin kinships from Australia (N = 20,945) and the United States (N = 24,905). To this large data set we fitted a model estimating genetic and environmental components of variance and gene-environmental covariance to examine the causes of individual differences in Neuroticism. For the combined sample we reject models including environmental transmission, shared environment, and a special twin environment in favor of more parsimonious genetic models. The best-fitting model involved only modest assortative mating, nonshared environment, and both additive and nonadditive genetic components. We conclude, first, that there is no evidence for environmental transmission as a contribution to individual differences in Neuroticism in these replicated samples, drawn from different continents, and, second, that a simple genetic structure underlies familial resemblance for the personality trait of Neuroticism. It is interesting that, despite the opportunity provided by the elaborate design and extensive power of our study, the picture revealed for the causes of individual differences in Neuroticism is little more complex than that found from earlier, simpler designs applied to smaller samples. However, this simplicity could not have been confirmed without using a highly informative design and a very large sample.
DATE PUBLISHED
2000 May
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 2000/12/06 11:00
medline 2001/03/03 10:01
entrez 2000/12/06 11:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Lake RI Lake R I RI Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia.
Eaves LJ Eaves L J LJ
Maes HH Maes H H HH
Heath AC Heath A C AC
Martin NG Martin N G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 30
ISSUE: 3
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2000
MONTH: May
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0001-8244
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Behav Genet
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0001-8244
NLMUNIQUEID: 0251711
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
AA07535 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA07728 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Australia
Diseases in Twins genetics
Female genetics
Humans genetics
Individuality genetics
Male genetics
Middle Aged genetics
Models, Genetic genetics
Neurotic Disorders psychology
Social Environment psychology
United States psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's