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
23903437
TITLE
Heritability and the equal environments assumption: evidence from multiple samples of misclassified twins.
ABSTRACT
Classically derived estimates of heritability from twin models have been plagued by the possibility of genetic-environmental covariance. Survey questions that attempt to measure directly the extent to which more genetically similar kin (such as monozygotic twins) also share more similar environmental conditions represent poor attempts to gauge a complex underlying phenomenon of GE-covariance. The present study exploits a natural experiment to address this issue: Self-misperception of twin zygosity in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Such twins were reared under one "environmental regime of similarity" while genetically belonging to another group, reversing the typical GE-covariance and allowing bounded estimates of heritability for a range of outcomes. In addition, we examine twins who were initially misclassified by survey assignment--a stricter standard--in three datasets: Add Health, the Minnesota Twin Family Study and the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. Results are similar across approaches and datasets and largely support the validity of the equal environments assumption.
DATE PUBLISHED
2013 Sep
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
received 2012/08/01
accepted 2013/07/16
entrez 2013/08/02 06:00
pubmed 2013/08/02 06:00
medline 2014/01/24 06:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Conley D Conley Dalton D Department of Sociology, New York University & NBER, 6 Washington Square North Room 20, New York, NY 10003, USA. conley@nyu.edu
Rauscher E Rauscher Emily E
Dawes C Dawes Christopher C
Magnusson PK Magnusson Patrik K E PK
Siegal ML Siegal Mark L ML
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 43
ISSUE: 5
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2013
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, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
P01-HD31921 NICHD NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity psychology
Body Mass Index psychology
Child psychology
Depression psychology
Female psychology
Humans psychology
Male psychology
Social Environment psychology
Twins, Dizygotic psychology
Twins, Monozygotic psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's