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Twin studies of psychosis and the genetics of cerebral asymmetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

T. J. Crow
T. J. Crow*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX. Tel: 01865 226474; Fax: 01865 244990
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Kläning (1999, this issue) reports that dizygotic twins are at increased risk of schizophrenia relative to the general population. Any departure from the first assumption of twin studies that the illness has the same origin in twins as it does in the general population might tell us something about aetiology. Kläning's expectation that monozygotic twins would be at increased risk because such pairs are at increased risk of perinatal complications was not confirmed, adding to the weight of evidence that such complications are unrelated to the origins of psychotic illness. The contrary finding that dizygotic twins are at increased risk draws attention to the nature of dizygotic twinning. Is there something about this process that yields a clue to the origins of psychosis?

Type
Editorials
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 175 , Issue 5 , November 1999 , pp. 399 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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