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Axel Hoffer, MD; William Pollin, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1970;23(5):469-477.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

THE CLASSICAL twin method has played a major role in influencing the direction of psychiatric thought on the relative importance of heredity and environment in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Fundamentally, this method is a comparison of a group of monozygotic or "identical" twins with a group of dizygotic or "fraternal" twins. The percentage of pairs where both twins are affected by a particular disease is compared in the two groups. This percentage is called the pairwise concordance rate. Since monozygotic twins are assumed to be genetically identical, while dizygotic twins no more so than nontwin siblings, comparisons of concordance rates between these two groups have been used to estimate the genetic contribution to a given illness.

In the past, studies showing a high concordance rate for schizophrenia in monozygotic twins and a much lower one in dizygotic twins have been accepted as . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Bethesda, Md

From the Section on Twin and Sibling Studies, Adult Psychiatrv Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md. Dr. Hoffer is now at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Boston.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Feb 5, 1970.

Reprint requests to Section on Twin and Sibling Studies, Adult Psychiatrv Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Building 10, Room 2S-239, Bethesda. Md 20014 (Dr. Pollin).

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