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Schizophrenia in Twins: 16 Years' Consecutive Admissions to a Psychiatric Clinic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Irving I. Gottesman  and
James Shields
Irving I. Gottesman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, N.C.
James Shields
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Psychiatric Genetics Research Unit, Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5
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Extract

Recent developments in the vexed questions of the relative importance to be attributed to genetic and environmental factors in the aetiology of schizophrenia, and the manner in which they interact to produce a phenotypic psychosis, are highlighted by David Rosenthal's series of critical papers (1959–1962) on twin and family studies and the book edited by him chronicling the lives of a set of monozygotic quadruplets all concordant for schizophrenia (1963). In his thorough and open-minded critique Rosenthal argues that previously reported concordance rates for monozygotic (MZ) twins have been misleadingly high. To this point we shall return in a moment. Rosenthal finally concludes that “the best information we now have with respect to the whole broad question of heredity and environment in schizophrenia, is to be found mainly in the five major studies of twins.” Unlike some who have pointed out weaknesses in the studies, he believes that “our task is to determine their source, extent and implications, not to dismiss them offhandedly because they contain errors” (1962a, p. 132).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 112 , Issue 489 , August 1966 , pp. 809 - 818
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1966 

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