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
575719
TITLE
The use of twins in the analysis of assortative mating.
ABSTRACT
The simulations illustrated show that a plausible model for mate selection can generate data on the similarity of twins and their spouses which are remarkably consistent with a transitive model for the effects of mate selection. This is, biological considerations impose constraints upon the relative values of correlations which are not foreseen, for example, by the some advocates of conventional path models although they might be predicted by common sense. In particular, the correlation between the spouses of twins is expected to be non-zero under a model of phenotypic assortment and turns out to be approximately equal to the product of the twin correlation and the square of the marital correlation. The relative magnitudes of the correlations derived from an empirical study of such relationships should enable models of phenotypic assortment to be tested more rigorously. Including both identical and non-identical twins in the sample studied should permit the inherited and cultural components of the mating system to be identified with more conviction. In the event of one sex playing a more significant role in mate selection for particular traits, such studies should reveal diagnostic patterns of familial correlations as long as male and female twins and their spouses are analysed separately. If the analysis is restricted to phenotypic correlations of the parents, the qualitative findings do not appear to be greatly affected by selection due to assortative mating although a reduction in variance is to be expected if a large proportion of individuals is unable to mate. In such cases twins will also be significantly concordant for mating. The consequences of such varied regimes of assortation for the population structure and the relationship between traits in subsequent generations remain the object of future inquiry.
DATE PUBLISHED
1979 Dec
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 1979/12/01
medline 1979/12/01 00:01
entrez 1979/12/01 00:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Eaves L Eaves L L
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 43
ISSUE: 3
TITLE: Heredity
ISOABBREVIATION: Heredity (Edinb)
YEAR: 1979
MONTH: Dec
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0018-067X
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Heredity (Edinb)
COUNTRY: England
ISSNLINKING: 0018-067X
NLMUNIQUEID: 0373007
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Female
Humans
Male
Mathematics
Models, Genetic
Phenotype
Pregnancy
Sexual Behavior
Twins
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's