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
8825903
TITLE
Self-report psychiatric symptoms in twins and their nontwin relatives: are twins different?
ABSTRACT
While twin studies of psychiatric disorders have been conducted for over 65 years, surprisingly little is known about the comparability of psychiatric symptoms in adult twins and singletons. To address this question, we compared the means and variances of four-factor scores on the self-report Symptom Check List in twins and their relatives from the Virginia 30,000 twin-family study. The four factors were depression, panic-phobia, somatization, and insomnia. Twins had significantly higher scores on the panic-phobia factor than their relatives, by about one eighteenth of a standard deviation, and this was replicated in both subsamples. However, no consistent and significant mean differences between twins and their relatives were detected for the other three symptom factors. While some differences in variance were found between twins and their relatives, in no case were the differences replicated in both subsamples. With the possible exception of modestly elevated scores for panic-phobia, these results suggest that both the level and variability of common psychiatric symptoms reported by twins are similar to those found in the nontwin population.
DATE PUBLISHED
1995 Dec 18
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 1995/12/18
medline 1995/12/18 00:01
entrez 1995/12/18 00:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Kendler KS Kendler K S KS Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA.
Martin NG Martin N G NG
Heath AC Heath A C AC
Eaves LJ Eaves L J LJ
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 60
ISSUE: 6
TITLE: American journal of medical genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Am. J. Med. Genet.
YEAR: 1995
MONTH: Dec
DAY: 18
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0148-7299
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Am J Med Genet
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0148-7299
NLMUNIQUEID: 7708900
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA06781 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
MH40828 NIMH NIH HHS United States
MH49492 NIMH NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Age Factors
Analysis of Variance
Depression
Diseases in Twins psychology
Female psychology
Humans psychology
Male psychology
Panic Disorder psychology
Phobic Disorders psychology
Sex Factors psychology
Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders psychology
Somatoform Disorders psychology
Twins psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's