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Twin study
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Twin study
Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and in related fields, from biology to psychology. Twin studies are part of the broader methodology used in behavior genetics, which uses all data that are genetically informative – siblings studies, adoption studies, pedigree, etc. These studies have been used to track traits ranging from personal behavior to the presentation of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
Twins are a valuable source for observation because they allow the study of environmental influence and varying genetic makeup: "identical" or monozygotic (MZ) twins share essentially 100% of their genes, which means that most differences between the twins (such as height, susceptibility to boredom, intelligence, depression, etc.) are due to experiences that one twin has but not the other twin. "Fraternal" or dizygotic (DZ) twins share only about 50% of their genes, the same as any other sibling. Twins also share many aspects of their environment (e.g., uterine environment, parenting style, education, wealth, culture, community) because they are born into the same family. The presence of a given genetic or phenotypic trait in only one member of a pair of identical twins (called discordance) provides a powerful window into environmental effects on such a trait.
Twins are also useful in showing the importance of the unique environment (specific to one twin or the other) when studying trait presentation. Changes in the unique environment can stem from an event or occurrence that has only affected one twin. This could range from a head injury or a birth defect that one twin has sustained while the other remains healthy.
The classical twin design compares the similarity of monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. If identical twins are considerably more similar than fraternal twins (which is found for all traits), this implies that genes play an important role in these traits. By comparing many hundreds of families with twins, researchers can then understand more about the roles of genetic effects, shared environment, and unique environment in shaping behavior.
Modern twin studies have concluded that all studied traits are partly influenced by genetic differences, with some characteristics showing a stronger influence (e.g. height), others an intermediate level (e.g. personality traits) and some more complex heritabilities, with evidence for different genes affecting different aspects of the trait – as in the case of autism.
Twins have been of interest to scholars since early civilization, including the early physician Hippocrates (5th century BCE), who attributed different diseases in twins to different material circumstances, and the stoic philosopher Posidonius (1st century BCE), who attributed such similarities to shared astrological circumstances. Saint Augustine in his Confessions (4th century CE) on the other hand uses the diverging lives lived by twins as an argument against astrology.
Gustav III, King of Sweden was the first to commission a medical study using identical twins. Gustav's father, Adolph Frederick had been an opponent of stimulating drinks such as tea and coffee, signing the Misuse and Excesses Tea and Coffee Drinking Edict in 1757. Both Gustav III and his father had read and been strongly influenced by a 1715 treatise from a French physician on the dangers of what would later be identified as caffeine in tea and coffee. After assuming the throne in 1771 the king became strongly motivated to demonstrate to his subjects that coffee and tea had deleterious effects on human health. To this end he offered to commute the death sentences of a pair of twin murderers if they participated in a primitive clinical trial.
Both condemned men agreed and subsequently spent the rest of their lives in prison fulfilling the king's demands: that one twin drink three pots of coffee every day and the other three pots of tea. The tea drinking twin died first at the age of 83, long after Gustav III, who was assassinated in 1792. The age of the coffee-drinking twin at his death is unknown, as both doctors assigned by the king to monitor this study predeceased him. The ban on coffee and tea in Sweden was lifted in 1823.
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Twin study
Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and in related fields, from biology to psychology. Twin studies are part of the broader methodology used in behavior genetics, which uses all data that are genetically informative – siblings studies, adoption studies, pedigree, etc. These studies have been used to track traits ranging from personal behavior to the presentation of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
Twins are a valuable source for observation because they allow the study of environmental influence and varying genetic makeup: "identical" or monozygotic (MZ) twins share essentially 100% of their genes, which means that most differences between the twins (such as height, susceptibility to boredom, intelligence, depression, etc.) are due to experiences that one twin has but not the other twin. "Fraternal" or dizygotic (DZ) twins share only about 50% of their genes, the same as any other sibling. Twins also share many aspects of their environment (e.g., uterine environment, parenting style, education, wealth, culture, community) because they are born into the same family. The presence of a given genetic or phenotypic trait in only one member of a pair of identical twins (called discordance) provides a powerful window into environmental effects on such a trait.
Twins are also useful in showing the importance of the unique environment (specific to one twin or the other) when studying trait presentation. Changes in the unique environment can stem from an event or occurrence that has only affected one twin. This could range from a head injury or a birth defect that one twin has sustained while the other remains healthy.
The classical twin design compares the similarity of monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. If identical twins are considerably more similar than fraternal twins (which is found for all traits), this implies that genes play an important role in these traits. By comparing many hundreds of families with twins, researchers can then understand more about the roles of genetic effects, shared environment, and unique environment in shaping behavior.
Modern twin studies have concluded that all studied traits are partly influenced by genetic differences, with some characteristics showing a stronger influence (e.g. height), others an intermediate level (e.g. personality traits) and some more complex heritabilities, with evidence for different genes affecting different aspects of the trait – as in the case of autism.
Twins have been of interest to scholars since early civilization, including the early physician Hippocrates (5th century BCE), who attributed different diseases in twins to different material circumstances, and the stoic philosopher Posidonius (1st century BCE), who attributed such similarities to shared astrological circumstances. Saint Augustine in his Confessions (4th century CE) on the other hand uses the diverging lives lived by twins as an argument against astrology.
Gustav III, King of Sweden was the first to commission a medical study using identical twins. Gustav's father, Adolph Frederick had been an opponent of stimulating drinks such as tea and coffee, signing the Misuse and Excesses Tea and Coffee Drinking Edict in 1757. Both Gustav III and his father had read and been strongly influenced by a 1715 treatise from a French physician on the dangers of what would later be identified as caffeine in tea and coffee. After assuming the throne in 1771 the king became strongly motivated to demonstrate to his subjects that coffee and tea had deleterious effects on human health. To this end he offered to commute the death sentences of a pair of twin murderers if they participated in a primitive clinical trial.
Both condemned men agreed and subsequently spent the rest of their lives in prison fulfilling the king's demands: that one twin drink three pots of coffee every day and the other three pots of tea. The tea drinking twin died first at the age of 83, long after Gustav III, who was assassinated in 1792. The age of the coffee-drinking twin at his death is unknown, as both doctors assigned by the king to monitor this study predeceased him. The ban on coffee and tea in Sweden was lifted in 1823.
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