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
20155391
TITLE
Testing the equal environments assumption in the Children of Twins design.
ABSTRACT
In a Children of Twins (COT) design, the environmental and genetic risk of a child is, in part, dependent upon the status of the father and the father's cotwin. The logic of the COT method breaks down if the zygosity of the twin pair is confounded with the environment provided to the child (a version of the Equal Environment Assumption, EEA). If MZ twin fathers see each other more often than DZ twin fathers, and a child's uncle is the affected twin in discordant pairs, this could increase the environmental risk of children of MZ over that of DZ discordant twins. The current study was designed to test the EEA in the COT design, specifically in children of alcohol and drug dependent fathers. Results indicated that MZ twins did have more contact than DZ twins. Regression analyses were conducted to predict child externalizing symptom counts from father's zygosity group status, level of contact with father's cotwin, and their interaction. Results found no significant interaction between father's zygosity and the higher level of cotwin contact (seen in MZ twins) in predicting several measures of offspring externalizing risk. The results of this study suggested that the COT design does not confound zygosity with differences in environmental risk exposure, findings that support the validity of the EEA within this research context.
DATE PUBLISHED
2010 Jul
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
received 2008/11/07
accepted 2010/02/02
entrez 2010/02/16 06:00
pubmed 2010/02/16 06:00
medline 2010/10/13 06:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Koenig LB Koenig Laura B LB Family Research Center, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Menlo Park, CA, USA. koenig@kutztown.edu
Jacob T Jacob Theodore T
Haber JR Haber Jon Randolph JR
Xian H Xian Hong H
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 40
ISSUE: 4
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2010
MONTH: Jul
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, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
DA-14364 NIDA NIH HHS United States
AA-11667 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
R01 AA011667-05 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
DA-020810 NIDA NIH HHS United States
R01 AA011667 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
R01 AA011822 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
AA-11822 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
R01 DA020810 NIDA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Alcoholism genetics
Child genetics
Family psychology
Fathers psychology
Female psychology
Humans psychology
Male psychology
Middle Aged psychology
Registries psychology
Social Environment psychology
Substance-Related Disorders genetics
Twins, Dizygotic genetics
Twins, Monozygotic genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's