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
16273321
TITLE
Widespread evidence for non-additive genetic variation in Cloninger's and Eysenck's personality dimensions using a twin plus sibling design.
ABSTRACT
Studies using the classical twin design often conclude that most genetic variation underlying personality is additive in nature. However, studies analyzing only twins are very limited in their ability to detect non-additive genetic variation and are unable to detect sources of variation unique to twins, which can mask non-additive genetic variation. The current study assessed 9672 MZ and DZ twin individuals and 3241 of their siblings to investigate the environmental and genetic architecture underlying eight dimensions of personality: four from Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire and four from Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. Broad-sense heritability estimates from best-fitting models were two to three times greater than the narrow-sense heritability estimates for Harm Avoidance, Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence, Persistence, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. This genetic non-additivity could be due to dominance, additive-by-additive epistasis, or to additive genetic effects combined with higher-order epistasis. Environmental effects unique to twins were detected for both Lie and Psychoticism but accounted for little overall variation. Our results illustrate the increased sensitivity afforded by extending the classical twin design to include siblings, and may provide clues to the evolutionary origins of genetic variation underlying personality.
DATE PUBLISHED
2005 Nov
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
received 2004/09/24
accepted 2005/05/20
pubmed 2005/11/08 09:00
medline 2006/03/29 09:00
entrez 2005/11/08 09:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Keller MC Keller Matthew C MC Center for Society and Genetics (UCLA), University of California, 1339 Murphy Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1405, USA. matthew.c.keller@gmail.com
Coventry WL Coventry William L WL
Heath AC Heath Andrew C AC
Martin NG Martin Nicholas G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 35
ISSUE: 6
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2005
MONTH: Nov
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, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA07535 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA07728 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA10249 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA11998 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
MH31302 NIMH NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Australia
Female
Genetic Variation
Humans
Life Style
Male
Models, Genetic
Personality genetics
Personality Assessment genetics
Questionnaires genetics
Reproducibility of Results genetics
Research Design genetics
Siblings genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's