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The power of twin designs arises from the fact that twins may be either identical (monozygotic (MZ), i.e. developing from a single fertilized egg and therefore sharing all of their polymorphic alleles) or fraternal (dizygotic (DZ), i.e. developing from two fertilized eggs and therefore sharing on average 50% of their alleles, the same level of genetic similarity found in non-twin siblings).
Studies of twins have shown that genetic traits of monozygotic twins are fully concordant, whereas in dizygotic twins, half of genetic traits are concordant, while the other half are discordant. Discordant rates that are higher than concordant rates express the influence of the environment on twin traits. [2]
Twin studies are utilized in an attempt to determine how much of a particular trait is attributable to either genetics or environmental influence. These studies compare monozygotic and dizygotic twins for medical, genetic, or psychological characteristics to try to isolate genetic influence from epigenetic and environmental influence.
Unlike monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins result from the fertilization of two eggs by two separate sperms within the same pregnancy. This causes the set of twins to have genetic variations, so their genetic information is unique from one another. In studies conducted between 1924 and 1976, there were more left-handed monozygotic twins.
Fraternal twins are dizygotic because they develop from two separate oocytes (egg cells) that are fertilized by two separate sperm. Sesquizygotic twins are halfway between monozygotic and dizygotic and are believed to arise after two sperm fertilize a single oocyte which subsequently splits into two morula .
From twin studies is typically estimated at 0 because the correlation between monozygotic twins is at least twice the correlation for dizygotic twins. When using the Falconer variance decomposition ( 1.0 = a 2 + c 2 + e 2 {\displaystyle 1.0=a^{2}+c^{2}+e^{2}} ) this difference between monozygotic and dizygotic twin similarity results in an ...
Falconer's formula is a mathematical formula that is used in twin studies to estimate the relative contribution of genetic vs. environmental factors to variation in a particular trait (that is, the heritability of the trait) based on the difference between twin correlations. [2]
The use of twin studies assumes the elimination of non-genetic differences by finding the statistical differences between monozygotic (identical) twins, which have almost the same genes, and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. [49] The similarity of the environment in which twins are reared has been questioned. [50] [51]