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
2802925
TITLE
Confirming unexpressed genotypes for schizophrenia. Risks in the offspring of Fischer's Danish identical and fraternal discordant twins.
ABSTRACT
Margit Fischer reported in 1971 that the risk of schizophrenia in the offspring of her Danish schizophrenic monozygotic twins and their normal cotwins was equal and not different from the risks in the children of schizophrenics in the literature. All of her identical and fraternal twins who had children and all of their offspring have been followed up through the Danish National Psychiatric Register as of 1985, some 18 years after study by Fischer. The morbid risk (age-corrected) for schizophrenia and schizophrenia-related disorders in the offspring of schizophrenic identical twins is 16.8%; it is 17.4% in their normal cotwins' offspring. The risks in the offspring of schizophrenic fraternal twins and their normal cotwins are 17.4% and 2.1%, respectively. The results suggest that discordance in identical twins may primarily be explained by the capacity of a schizophrenic genotype or diathesis to be unexpressed unless it is released by some kinds of environmental, including nonfamilial, stressors. Sporadic cases and phenocopies caused by cerebral abnormalities, diseases, or viruses would thus be deemphasized as necessary or sufficient explanatory causes for schizophrenia in our study but could account for some of the remaining discordance, infrequent phenocopies should encourage linkage researchers, but unexpression of genotypes will frustrate them.
DATE PUBLISHED
1989 Oct
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 1989/10/01
medline 1989/10/01 00:01
entrez 1989/10/01 00:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Gottesman II Gottesman I I II Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Bertelsen A Bertelsen A A
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 46
ISSUE: 10
TITLE: Archives of general psychiatry
ISOABBREVIATION: Arch. Gen. Psychiatry
YEAR: 1989
MONTH: Oct
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0003-990X
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Arch Gen Psychiatry
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0003-990X
NLMUNIQUEID: 0372435
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Case Reports
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
REFTYPE REFSOURCE REFPMID NOTE
CommentIn Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1990 Oct;47(10):976-8 2222136
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
MH-31302 NIMH NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Denmark
Diseases in Twins
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Gene Expression
Genotype
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Registries
Risk Factors
Schizophrenia genetics
Sex Factors genetics
Twins, Dizygotic genetics
Twins, Monozygotic genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's