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
25326879
TITLE
Twins' rearing environment similarity and childhood externalizing disorders: a test of the equal environments assumption.
ABSTRACT
The equal environments assumption (EEA) of the twin method posits that environmental influences that are etiologically relevant to a given phenotype are no more likely to be shared by monozygotic (MZ) than dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. One method of testing the EEA is to evaluate whether increased rearing environment similarity in MZ twin pairs compared to DZ twin pairs is related to increased phenotypic correlation. In a sample of 885 twin pairs, we contrasted similarity in rearing environment between MZ and DZ twin pairs, examined the correlation between similarity in rearing environment and conduct disorder (CD), oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD), inattention, and hyperactivity-impulsivity symptom dimensions, and tested the effects of differential similarity in rearing environments between MZ and DZ twin pairs by testing whether rearing environment similarity moderated the correlations for the externalizing symptom dimensions. We found that MZ twins experienced substantially more similar rearing environments than DZ twins, but that there was little evidence that MZ and DZ correlations for the externalizing symptom dimensions varied by rearing environment similarity. Thus, these results constitute evidence for the validity of the EEA for childhood externalizing disorders.
DATE PUBLISHED
2014 Nov
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
received 2014/09/18
accepted 2014/10/01
entrez 2014/10/20 06:00
pubmed 2014/10/20 06:00
medline 2015/07/21 06:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
LoParo D LoParo Devon D Psychology Department, Emory University, 36 Eagle Row, Atlanta, GA, 30306, USA, dloparo@emory.edu.
Waldman I Waldman Irwin I
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 44
ISSUE: 6
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2014
MONTH: Nov
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
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders etiology
Child etiology
Diseases in Twins etiology
Female etiology
Humans etiology
Male etiology
Risk Factors etiology
Social Environment etiology
Twins, Dizygotic etiology
Twins, Monozygotic etiology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's