Twinning rates in all of Japan for 1951-1968 and 1974-1990 were analyzed using data from vital statistics of Japan. The twinning rate per 1,000 births was 6.43 in 1951 and remained nearly constant until 1968, then decreased to 5.79 in 1974 and gradually increased to 7.00 in 1990. The MZ ...

The repeated-pairs of surnames in marriages (RP) approach is applied to the population of Tiszaszalka in north-eastern Hungary. The results indicate that: (1) lineage-like behaviour in mate choice results in population subdivision in both the Catholics and the Protestants of the village; (2) unlike in some other Tiszahat villages, the ...

The laterality effects in 10 symmetrical EEG derivations in twins (20 MZ and 20 DZ pairs with a mean age of 20.5 years) were examined. The quantitative and qualitative analyses gave the following results: (1) cotwins in the MZ and DZ pairs differed particularly in the intensity of asymmetry for ...

The birthrates of 507 schizophrenic patients with high familial loading were compared to the general population. The patient group showed a clearcut decrease in births within a defined winter and spring period. In particular, this was obvious if Leonhard's classification of schizophrenia was applied. The hypothesis is proposed that, in ...

Cleft lip and palate have been diagnosed antenatally only in the late midtrimester or at later gestational ages, when it is too late for pregnancy termination. The diagnosis of fetal cleft lip was made in three low-risk nulligravid women at 14 to 16 weeks of gestation by systematic screening with ...

Heritability of plasma apolipoprotein (apo) A-I, apo B, and low density lipoprotein (LDL) subclasses and concordance for lipoprotein(a) excess were assessed in 109 monozygotic (MZ) and 113 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs participating in the third examination of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Twin Study. The intraclass correlation coefficient ...

Genes that predispose to psychosis may act by making individuals more vulnerable to the disruptive effects of various prenatal insults. Fetal organogenesis is mostly completed in the first prenatal trimester. The second trimester is a critical period of massive neuronal migration from the periventricular germinal matrix to the cortex. A ...

Midfacial hypoplasia in patients with complete clefts of the lip and palate is considered to be the result of congenital dysmorphogenesis combined with surgical effects. The present study describes congenital correlates of midfacial hypoplasia by examining the relationships between premaxillary size and a number of adjacent oronasal capsular components in ...

Twin studies provide an efficient method for examining the importance of genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of disorders such as epilepsy. Population-based twin registries are especially valuable for studies of this type since effects of reporting and self-selection biases on the resulting data are minimized. Among 14,352 twin ...

The role of lignin peroxidases (LIPs) and manganese peroxidases (MNPs) of Phanerochaete chrysosporium in decolorizing kraft bleach plant effluent (BPE) was investigated. Negligible BPE decolorization was exhibited by a per mutant, which lacks the ability to produce both the LIPs and the MNPs. Also, little decolorization was seen when the ...

In a combined twin-family study, the concordance for subtype of schizophrenia was investigated. The sample included 31 monozygotic (MZ) and 28 dizygotic (DZ) twin probands fulfilling the criteria of DSM-III-R schizophrenia. Their co-twins and first-degree relatives were personally interviewed and diagnosed in accordance with DSM-III-R. Any twin or relative diagnosed ...

Bronchial reactivity was studied twice in eight monozygotic twin pairs discordant for allergic rhinitis with pollen hypersensitivity, during the winter season (all eight pairs) and during the pollen season (seven pairs). On both occasions, the allergic twins showed significantly higher reactivity than their nonallergic siblings. The results indicate that moderate ...

The nasopharyngeal area in 149 patients with cleft lip and palate and 157 normal individuals was evaluated by cephalometric radiography. The patients were male and female Caucasians, ranging in age from 12 to 16 years. Linear cephalometric parameters: (Ptm'-Sl; Ptm'-IPPF; IPPF-I, I-Ptm'), ANS angle and nasopharyngeal area were utilized. From ...

We have previously described a model for in utero cleft lip repair in rabbits. Cleft lip and alveolus (CL) were created in fetal rabbits at 24 days gestation (term, 31 days). In this study, postnatal maxillary growth was evaluated in three groups of animals: 1) unoperated controls, 2) unrepaired CL, ...

Recently recovered hominid postcrania from Member 1, Swartkrans Formation include the proximal and distal ends of a right radius attributed to a single individual of Paranthropus robustus. These fossils are essentially similar to Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, and P. boisei homologues. The head manifests an ape-like circumferentia articularis, and the ...

Dizygotic (DZ) World War II veteran twins who participated in the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Twin Study have been reported to have greater variance than monozygotic (MZ) twins for plasma high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), cholesterol in the low-density fraction of HDL (HDL2-C) and apolipoprotein A-I, a major ...

Studies of twins provide insight into the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors in the causality of structural anomalies. Thirty-five affected twin pairs were identified from a group of 1114 patients with congenital craniofacial deformities evaluated from 1972 to 1989. Forty-three of these 70 twins exhibited one or more ...

A dermatoglyphic index derived from monozygotic (MZ) twins of known placental type was used to estimate placentation retrospectively in a sample of adult male MZ twins. Examination of behavioral test scores with respect to placentation showed that the within-pair difference of most measures of type A behavior was smaller in ...

As part of an ongoing study of cleft lip and palate fetal morphology, premaxillary development was examined cross-sectionally in a sample of 20 "normal" fetuses and 9 fetuses with complete clefts of the lip and palate ranging in age from 8 to 21 weeks. The specimens were stained with H ...

The usual assumption that monochorionic twins are monozygotic has recently been questioned, based on blood group discordance in 3 of 12 monochorionic pairs. Therefore, this study evaluates the validity of zygosity diagnosis based on examination of placental membranes, and at the same time evaluates Weinberg's differential rule in a Danish ...

The incidence and degree of scoliosis were investigated in broiler chickens with and without intertarsal deformities associated with slipped gastrocnemius tendons. In both groups, the incidence of scoliosis was similar and there was a significant tendency for scoliosis to be convex on the right side. However, scoliosis was significantly greater ...

A pair of identical 10-year-old Chinese twins with bilateral mesiodentes of opposite orientation are presented. Three mesiodentes were conical and impacted, while the other one had erupted and was incisiform in shape. All roots of the mesiodentes were completely formed. Intrapair twin comparison showed a high degree of genetically determined ...

This study follows one woman through her pregnancy and the transition to motherhood, exploring the relationship between this life-event and aspects of her personal identity. Repertory grids were obtained from her four times during the transition, and at the end of the study she completed retrospective grids for how she ...

Twenty-five discordant twin pairs were assessed ultrasonically in a longitudinal fashion and were compared with a group of 60 concordant twin pairs. The growth parameters of the larger fetus of the discordant pair did not differ significantly from the concordant twins, while the smaller of the discordant pair exhibited a ...

Objective refraction through plus fogging lenses and base-in prisms revealed that normally accommodation is not completely relaxed when the stimulus to accommodation is zero. The myopic shift in the refractive error due to this focus error of accommodation was defined as physiological pseudomyopia. Two previously established features of accommodation are ...

Stepwise discriminant function analysis and Mahalanobis's generalized distance are applied to 36 measurements recorded in crania from Australasia and Oceania for assessing biological relationships and possible origins of these populations. Craniofacial variation in Australia is found to be clinal. There is extreme diversity in the Murray River Valley and southern ...

In a sample of 129 female schizophrenic patients followed for a period of 22 years, an analysis of intercorrelations between background, premorbid, and clinical variables was performed. Poor outcome, as measured by amount of hospitalization, was associated with premorbid psychopathic traits, defective premorbid social adjustment, early onset, and nonparanoid subtype ...

We addressed the hypothesis that premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) and sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) have identical QRS morphologies in 20 patients with recurrent sustained VT. Continuous six-lead ECGs of PVCs and sustained VT induced with programmed stimulation were recorded. A computer program divided the PVCs and VT beats of each ...

Bronchial reactivity was studied in six asthma-discordant monozygotic twin pairs. In four pairs, atopy was confirmed in the asthmatic twin. It was not confirmed in any of the nonasthmatics. In five pairs, the asthmatic twin was markedly more reactive than the nonasthmatic partner. Bronchial reactivity correlated significantly with total IgE. ...

The effect of migration on pairwise concordance for disease was assessed in 11,154 twin pairs of the Finnish Twin Cohort Study by comparing the pairs living in the same province to the pairs which members were living in different provinces of Finland. The cumulative incidence of psychosis and hypertension for ...

Subjects were 189 twin pairs, 165 MZ and 24 same-sexed DZ, who entered the junior high school affiliated to Tokyo University (sample T), and 93 twin pairs, 71 MZ and 22 same-sexed DZ, who were registered at Kinki University (sample K). The zygosity was previously identified by many genetic markers, ...

Cerebral midline anomalies are defects of anatomical relationships between the two hemispheres. They include holoprosencephalies, septal and commissural agenesis. Agenesis of the olfactory tract (arhinencephalies) are often included in the spectrum of holoprosencephalies and the facial phenotype is thought to be affected and characteristic in the midline development abnormalities. This ...

The cytoarchitectonics of the parabrachial nuclear complex (PBNC) were studied in brain stem sections, stained with cresyl violet, from laboratory and phylogenetically interesting mammals. In all the animals studied, the PBNC can be separated into the following subnuclei: dorsal (D), dorsomedial (DM), dorsolateral (DL), lateral (L), medial (M), ventral (Ve) ...

The Finnish Twin Cohort Study was used to compile twin pairs in whom one or both members had astigmatism. Seventy-two pairs of twins (42 monozygotic and 30 dizygotic) were found. Refractive error and astigmatism information was obtained by asking the twins to send their last prescription for glasses to the ...

We have followed 3 pairs of monozygotic twin sisters with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) since 1966, 1971 and 1975. RA developed in the probands at the age of 25, 39 and 21 years and in the cotwins 37, 8 and 19 years later, respectively. Two pairs, Nos 1 and 3, ...

Twenty twin pairs (9 monozygotic and 11 dizygotic) were examined to test the effect of genetic and environmental factors on the etiology of refractive error, axial length of the eyeball, and total astigmatism. The twins pairs were ascertained from the nationwide Finnish Twin Cohort Study (FTCS). The monozygosity was confirmed ...

Porcine morulae were bisected by a glass needle after softening of zonae pellucidae by pronase followed by a treatment with 0.05% trypsin/0.02% EDTA for decreasing intercellular junction of blastomeres. Transfer of 49 half-morulae to three recipients resulted in one pregnancy. The blastocysts were bisected symmetrically so as to leave a ...

The etiology and incidence of posterior urethral valves is unknown. We report on a pair of non-twin siblings with identical pathology stemming from type I posterior urethral valves as well as discordance in a pair of monozygotic twins. Familial posterior urethral valves have been reported before in both twin and ...

The present report describes on a 1-year-old girl with macrocephaly, bulging forehead, ocular hypertelorism, antimongoloid palpebral slant, convergent strabismus, atrophy of optic papillae, short philtrum, protruding lips, high-arched palate, bifid uvula, broad trunk, apparently widely spaced nipples, diastasis recti, small umbilical hernia, tapering fingers, fifth-finger clinodactyly, postaxial polydactyly of the ...

The effect of a 2.5-fold increase in daily carbidopa intake on the bioavailability of levodopa was studied in six patients with Parkinson's disease on a low chronic regimen of carbidopa-levodopa (Sinemet) at the fixed ratio of 1:10. The extent of levodopa absorption, expressed as the area under the 11-h plasma ...

The resting breathing patterns of healthy adult identical twins were compared to see if there was any possible genetic component in the determination of this pattern. From breath-by-breath analysis of airflow, measured with a pneumotachometer (9 pairs of twins), the pattern of breathing was quantified in terms of individual respiratory ...

In an attempt to replicate the influential study of Boklage (1977), hand preference for writing was examined in a new series of 30 monozygotic (MZ) and 30 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs in whom the proband had suffered a functional psychosis. In contrast to the original report, no increased rate of ...

The study presents a craniometric analysis of facial morphology in patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate with reverse overjet well developed. The aim was to find out which structures are responsible for the incidence of reverse overjet. Examined were: 30 patients, aged 12-15, with this affection and 30 ...

This report examines the impact of two major kinds of unequal ascertainment on the estimation of true probandwise concordance (Cpbt) in twin studies: 1) concordance-dependent - where the ascertainment rate differs in affected members of concordant vs discordant pairs, and 2) non-independent - where ascertainment rates differ in affected members ...

Glycosaminoglycans (GAG) were extracted from the connective tissue of the palatal rugae, separated by electrophoresis and compared with the results obtained for the remaining palatal mucosal and gingival connective tissues. The GAG content of the rugae (3.01 mg/g defatted dry weight) was higher than in the remaining palatal mucosa (2.33 ...

After surgical removal of a parasitic cyst in the right prerolandic area, an educated 25-year-old male exhibited obvious deficits in one of his three languages (Gujarati), with no measurable deficits in the other two (French and Malagasy). The patient spoke all three languages fluently before the operation. Gujarati and Malagasy ...

The conference on Fetal Neural Development and Schizophrenia which was held in Washington, DC, May 31-June 1, 1988, focused on factors of possible etiological significance in fetal development. Schizophrenia researchers joined experts in brain imaging, neuropathological, and neurochemical changes in brain development and investigators of potential genetic and neurobehavioral causes ...

As convincing as the discussion presented by Elizabeth Bates, Angela Friederici and Beverly Wulfeck on grammatical morphology in aphasia in three languages may seem, we were at loss when trying to reconstruct the quantitative basis of their argumentation (see Bates et al., 1987, Grammatical morphology in aphasia: Evidence from three ...

We evaluated six pairs of conjoined twins: four pairs were dicephalus, and two were of the ischiopagus type. In three of the four dicephalus pairs, the right twin had an abnormality of laterality that included a right aortic arch, reversed great vessel orientation, bilateral right-sided isomerism of the lungs, asplenia, ...

The importance of inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity in murine embryonic tissues for the teratogenic action of the TCDD congener 3,3',4,4'-tetrachloroazoxybenzene (TCAOB), has been studied. When D,L-alpha-difluoromethyl ornithine (DFMO), an inhibitor of ODC activity, was coadministered with TCAOB, it decreased the frequency of cleft palate compared with TCAOB alone. ...