A Registry of Adult African American Twins: The Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging

Twin studies have seldom addressed ethnicity as one of the possible factors that create unique combinations of genetic and environmental influences. The major objective of the Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging is to identify the proportion of the genetic and environmental sources of individual variation in measures of health and behavioral factors in a sample of adult African Americans. Drawn from birth records from the State of North Carolina, this in-person study used public records to identify a cohort of twins between 22 and 92 years of age (X = 49.82 yrs, SD = 14.62), 39.7% of which were men. Members of non-intact twin pairs and siblings were also recruited to explore alternative models to the classic twin design. To date, the project has contributed to knowledge about blood pressure, forced expiratory volume, chronic illness, body mass index, and waist-hip ratio memory, personality, social, and demographic factors, mortality, and mental health.

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Twin Research in the Post-Genomic Era: Dissecting the Pathophysiological Effects of Adversity and the Social Environment

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms21093142 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (9) ◽

pp. 3142 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jonathan D. Turner ◽

Conchita D’Ambrosio ◽

Claus Vögele ◽

Martin Diewald

Keyword(s):

Social Environment ◽

Study Design ◽

Twin Study ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Twin Studies ◽

Twin Design ◽

The Social ◽

The Individual ◽

Randomised Controlled

The role of twins in research is evolving as we move further into the post-genomic era. With the re-definition of what a gene is, it is becoming clear that biological family members who share a specific genetic variant may well not have a similar risk for future disease. This has somewhat invalidated the prior rationale for twin studies. Case co-twin study designs, however, are slowly emerging as the ideal tool to identify both environmentally induced epigenetic marks and epigenetic disease-associated processes. Here, we propose that twin lives are not as identical as commonly assumed and that the case co-twin study design can be used to investigate the effects of the adult social environment. We present the elements in the (social) environment that are likely to affect the epigenome and measures in which twins may diverge. Using data from the German TwinLife registry, we confirm divergence in both the events that occur and the salience for the individual start as early as age 11. Case co-twin studies allow for the exploitation of these divergences, permitting the investigation of the role of not only the adult social environment, but also the salience of an event or environment for the individual, in determining lifelong health trajectories. In cases like social adversity where it is clearly not possible to perform a randomised-controlled trial, we propose that the case co-twin study design is the most rigorous manner with which to investigate epigenetic mechanisms encoding environmental exposure. The role of the case co-twin design will continue to evolve, as we argue that it will permit causal inference from observational data.

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Babytwins Study Sweden (BATSS): A multi-method infant twin study of genetic and environmental factors influencing infant brain and behavioral development

10.1101/2021.04.19.439492 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Terje Falck-Ytter ◽

Linnea Hamrefors ◽

Monica Siqueiros Sanchez ◽

Ana Maria Portugal ◽

Mark Taylor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Twin Study ◽

Dna Analysis ◽

Twin Studies ◽

Phenotypic Trait ◽

Twin Design ◽

Developmental Neuroscience ◽

Genes And Environment ◽

Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽

Longitudinal Twin Study

ABSTRACTTwin studies can help us understand the relative contributions of genes and environment to phenotypic trait variation including attentional and brain activation measures. In terms of applying methodologies like electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking, which are key methods in developmental neuroscience, infant twin studies are almost non-existent. Here we describe the Babytwins Study Sweden (BATSS), a multi-method longitudinal twin study of 177 MZ and 134 DZ twin pairs (i.e. 622 individual infants) covering the 5 - 36 month time period. The study includes EEG, eye tracking and genetics, together with more traditional measures based on in-person testing, direct observation and questionnaires. The results show that interest in participation in research among twin parents is high, despite the comprehensive protocol. DNA analysis from saliva samples was possible in virtually all participants, allowing for both zygosity confirmation and polygenic score analyses. Combining a longitudinal twin design with advanced technologies in developmental cognitive neuroscience and genomics, BATSS represents a new approach in infancy research, which we hope to have impact across multiple disciplines in the coming years.

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The Babytwins Study Sweden (BATSS): A Multi-Method Infant Twin Study of Genetic and Environmental Factors Influencing Infant Brain and Behavioral Development

Twin Research and Human Genetics ◽

10.1017/thg.2021.34 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 24 (4) ◽

pp. 217-227

Author(s):

Terje Falck-Ytter ◽

Linnea Hamrefors ◽

Monica Siqueiros Sanches ◽

Ana Maria Portugal ◽

Mark Taylor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Twin Study ◽

Dna Analysis ◽

Twin Studies ◽

Phenotypic Trait ◽

Twin Design ◽

Developmental Neuroscience ◽

Genes And Environment ◽

Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽

Longitudinal Twin Study

AbstractTwin studies can help us understand the relative contributions of genes and environment to phenotypic trait variation, including attentional and brain activation measures. In terms of applying methodologies such as electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking, which are key methods in developmental neuroscience, infant twin studies are almost nonexistent. Here, we describe the Babytwins Study Sweden (BATSS), a multi-method longitudinal twin study of 177 MZ and 134 DZ twin pairs (i.e., 622 individual infants) covering the 5−36 month time period. The study includes EEG, eye tracking and genetics, together with more traditional measures based on in-person testing, direct observation and questionnaires. The results show that interest in participation in research among twin parents is high, despite the comprehensive protocol. DNA analysis from saliva samples was possible in virtually all participants, allowing for both zygosity confirmation and polygenic score analyses. Combining a longitudinal twin design with advanced technologies in developmental cognitive neuroscience and genomics, BATSS represents a new approach in infancy research, which we hope to have impact across multiple disciplines in the coming years.

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