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
15836806
TITLE
Choice of residential location: chance, family influences, or genes?
ABSTRACT
The choice of where to live would appear to be determined by a combination of economic constraints and personal preferences. We have tested how far this choice is affected by the continuing effects of the environment shared within families, and genetic variation between people, using data from twin studies conducted in Australia. The addresses provided by study participants were categorized as urban, suburban and nonurban, and data were analyzed in three adult age groups. There were significant effects of both shared environment and genes, and the balance between them was affected by both sex and age. Shared environment accounted for some 50% of variation in the youngest group, but only about 10% in the oldest. As shared environmental effects decreased, additive genetic effects increased. These results have implications for internal migration of people within countries and, over the long term, for gene flow within and between populations. They may also be pertinent to the different prevalences of certain psychiatric diseases between city and country locations. Comparisons between countries with different demography are needed to confirm and further characterize these effects.
DATE PUBLISHED
2005 Feb
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 2005/04/20 09:00
medline 2005/12/24 09:00
entrez 2005/04/20 09:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Whitfield JB Whitfield John B JB Genetic Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia. John.Whitfield@qimr.edu.au
Zhu G Zhu Gu G
Heath AC Heath Andrew C AC
Martin NG Martin Nicholas G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 8
ISSUE: 1
TITLE: Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
ISOABBREVIATION: Twin Res Hum Genet
YEAR: 2005
MONTH: Feb
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 1832-4274
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Twin Res Hum Genet
COUNTRY: England
ISSNLINKING: 1832-4274
NLMUNIQUEID: 101244624
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
REFTYPE REFSOURCE REFPMID NOTE
CommentIn Twin Res Hum Genet. 2005 Aug;8(4):318-9 16176715
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA04535 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA07535 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adult
Aged
Australia
Family
Female
Genetics, Behavioral
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Residence Characteristics
Rural Population
Suburban Population
Urban Population
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's