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
18543092
TITLE
Environmental effects exceed genetic effects on perceived intensity and pleasantness of several odors: a three-population twin study.
ABSTRACT
Human genes encoding odorant receptors have been identified, but the contribution of genetic effects to total variation in specific odor perceptions is largely unknown. We estimated the relative contributions of genetic and environmental effects to variation in the perceived intensity and pleasantness of cinnamon, chocolate, turpentine, and isovaleric acid (sweaty) odors by quantitative genetic modeling of odor rating data from 856 twin individuals (including 83 complete monozygotic and 275 dizygotic twin pairs) aged 10-60 years (44% males and 56% females) from Australia, Denmark, and Finland. Results from fitting univariate models including components for additive genetic (A), shared environmental (C), and non-shared environmental (E) effects to the data implied that non-shared environmental effects account for the most variation in ratings of individual odors while genetic effects play only a minor role. Multivariate independent pathway model revealed a modest but significant common additive genetic component for intensity ratings, explaining 18% of the total variation. The results promote the importance of inter-individual variation in odor exposures and olfactory plasticity to odor perception.
DATE PUBLISHED
2008 Sep
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
received 2008/01/24
accepted 2008/05/22
aheadofprint 2008/06/10
pubmed 2008/06/11 09:00
medline 2008/12/17 09:00
entrez 2008/06/11 09:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Knaapila A Knaapila Antti A Department of Food Technology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 66, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. antti.knaapila@helsinki.fi
Tuorila H Tuorila Hely H
Silventoinen K Silventoinen Karri K
Wright MJ Wright Margaret J MJ
Kyvik KO Kyvik Kirsten O KO
Keskitalo K Keskitalo Kaisu K
Hansen J Hansen Jonathan J
Kaprio J Kaprio Jaakko J
Perola M Perola Markus M
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 38
ISSUE: 5
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2008
MONTH: Sep
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Internet
ISSN: 1573-3297
ISSNTYPE: Electronic
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
AA-12502 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Adult
Child
Environment
Female
Genetic Variation
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Models, Genetic
Multivariate Analysis
Odors
Perception
Smell genetics
Twins genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's