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The electroencephalogram (EEG) as a research tool in human behavior genetics: psychological examinations in healthy males with various inherited EEG variants. I. Rationale of the study. Material. Methods. Heritability of test parameters.

In the first section of this paper, various research designs in human behavior genetics are compared. In this context, the commonly used concept of biometric genetics is critically evaluated from the point of view of science theory. It is contrasted with the Mendelian gene concept, which, in principle, leads to a much deeper theoretical understanding by offering clues for basic mechanisms. To explore this advantage fully, a research strategy is needed that first looks for genetic variability in a physiological parameter of possible importance for human behavior and then tries to explore the influence of this parameter on the function of the human brain and on behavior. If possible, this genetic parameter should be selected in a way that inferences as to the mechanism of its influence on behavior become feasible. Such genetic variability is provided by the hereditary variants of the normal EEG discovered by earlier work (cf. Vogel, 1970). In the following section, a research program on 298 adult healthy males, most of them soldiers, with various inherited EEG variants is described. Apart from controls with inconspicuous EEGs, this material comprises probands with the following EEG variants: low-voltage (N); low-voltage borderline (NG); monotonous alpha-waves (R); occipital fast alpha-variants (BO); fronto-precentral beta-groups (BG), and diffuse beta-waves (BD). In addition to an EEG examination, the probands were examined with various test methods measuring intelligence (IST; LPS; Raven); working speed and concentration (d-2; KLT); personal attitudes (MMPI; 16PF; RKS); and sensory and motor abilities (flicker fusion; tachistoscopy; reaction time to optic, acoustic and combined stimuli; two-hand dexterity; pursuit rotor; tapping). In a supplementary twin study on 52 male adult twin pairs (26 MZ, 26 DZ), heritabilities were determined for the test scores included in the main study. For most test scores, heritabilities are relatively low; the data are compared with those from the literature. We conclude that the test methods utilized in the main study (on EEG variants) are expected to demonstrate at the most a small to moderate correlation of the EEGs with psychological phenotypes as defined by test examinations, even if a major part of the genetic variability underlying these phenotypes would be due to differences in brain physiology that could be revealed by EEG variation.

Adult

Heritable translocation test and dominant-lethal assay in mice with methyl methanesulfonate.

A dominant-lethal test and a heritable translocation test were performed with methyl methanesulphonate (MMS) at 40 mg/kg by treating the sensitive periods of post-meiotic spermatogenesis i.e. spermatozoa and spermatids. In the dominant-lethal test 25 to 60% dominant-lethal mutations were obtained depending on the mating intervals. In the heritable translocation test 11% sterile and partially sterile F1 males were observed in 250 offspring of the MMS group. All of the 14 partially sterile and 6 of the 14 sterile F1 males were demonstrated to be translocation carriers. Fertility of the partial steriles was about 40% of normal fertility. The translocation frequencies in the primary spermatocytes of the partially sterile F1 males varied between 2 and 99%. Transmission of partial sterility and translocations was confirmed in the F2 generation. There were no partially sterile or sterile males among the 245 controls.

Animals

Heritability of UV-sensitivity and photo-reactivation ability in Drosophila embryos.

In Drosophila the UV sensitivity at the zygote stage and PR ability of damage induced by UV irradiation at 290-380 nm are heritable characters. The heritability of those characters is matroclinal. Resistance to UV irradiation dominates over sensitivity, and high PR ability is dominant over low. These characters are not associated with the pleiotropic action of any of the genes in question.

Animals

Relative rates at which dominant-lethal mutations and heritable translocations are induced by alkylating chemicals in postmeiotic male germ cells of mice.

There is a close relationship between the rates at which dominant lethal mutations and heritable translocations are induced by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) or triethylenemelamine (TEM) in male postmeiotic germ cells. This relationship does not hold for isopropyl methanesulfonate (IMS), which induced only negligible frequencies of heritable translocations at doses that induced high levels of dominant lethal mutations. Nor does IMS behave like EMS and TEM in the degree to which eggs of different stocks of females repair premutational lesions that are carried in the sperm-large differences between stocks for IMS treatment and small differences for EMS or TEM treatment. These dissimilarities between IMS and the other two alkylating chemicals are postulated to be attributable to differences in the types of lesions present at the time of repair activity and to whether or not chromosomal aberrations are already fixed prior to postfertilization pronuclear DNA synthesis.

Alkylating Agents

Heritability of stature in a West African population.

Heritability of stature in a West African population is calculated from longitudinal data collected over 26 years. Statistical and analytical difficulties encountered in the study include those due to variation in stature with age, sex, recording and measuring, variation in number of offspring, variation in number of spouses, and heterogeneity of within-sibship variances. The structure of the population allows a half-sib analysis which is particularly useful in interpretation of the intrafamilial correlations and regressions. The heritability estimate of 0.6 appears lower than that from studies in European populations. The environmental contribution to the stature variance is pronounced, but is not unexpected in the light of the rigours of the traditional way of life in West African surroundings.

Adolescent

Dominance and environmental variances: their effect on heritabilities estimated from twin data.

A method for partitioning genetic variance estimated from twin data into additive and dominance variances was presented using Falconer's variance component model. The effects of dominance and environmental variances on a number of heritability estimates were also reviewed. A heritability estimate, based on the analysis of variance and the genetic variance estimates presented by HASEMAN and ELSTON and CHRISTIAN et al. which utilizes all available information from twin data, was proposed and discussed. This estimate seems to be the least affected by fluctuations in the magnitudes of dominance and environmental variances.

Analysis of Variance

[Heritable defects in dogs (author's transl)].

The introduction to this report contains a description of the development of breeds of domestic animals. The change-over from natural to artificial selection gives rise to disturbances of morphological, physiological and behavioural traits. The origine, incidence and diagnosis of heritable defects in various canine breeds are discussed. On this basis two tables listing heritable defects in dogs are presented.

Animals

The use of heritabilities of anthropometric measures and performance tests in personnel selection.

An analogy exists between the mathematical models of psychological test theory and quantitative genetics. From this analogy we can conclude, that longitudinal correlation and heritability in the broad sense are equivalent expressions for the reliability in the long run. Since long-range prediction is the aim of index construction for personnel selection in athletics and other applied fields, we recommend to use heritability as a weighting factor for phenotypic scores in order to calculate true scores and to eliminate error variance.

Anthropometry

[The heritabilities of tests of physical fitness, calculated from the performances of ten years old twin pairs (author's transl)].

In the German Democratic Republic a representative sample of 300 twin pairs of normal 10 years old school children was measured and tested. From a subset of 480 pairs (153 pairs of opposite sex and 327 of the same sex) the heritabilities are calculated: stature 0,89; weight 0,88; 60 meters run 0,85; long jump 0,74; cricketball throw 0,54; push up 0,85; hop jump 0,66; endurance run 0,93; shot throw 0,71. The use of heritabilities as weighting factors in the construction of selection indices for purposes of personnel selection is discussed.

Child

Heritability in syntactic development: a critique of Munsinger and Douglass.

Munsinger and Douglass (Child Development, 1976, 47, 40-50) used the Assessment of Children's Language Comprehension and the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test as measures of syntactic ability to investigate the heritability factor in language acquisition. By comparing the concordance of scores of twins and siblings, they concluded that heritability was the important variable in test performance (h2 = .79) and that environmental influences were not much over, 10. In the present critique, weaknesses regarding test measures are pointed out, and the validity of these measures for the ages of the children used in the study is questioned. It is also emphasized that the question of environmental effects in normal circumstances remains unquantified, and research indicates that language intervention programs with deficient populations can be beneficial.

Age Factors

Canine hip dysplasia: study of heritability in 401 litters of German Shepherd dogs.

Heritability of hip dysplasia was estimated to be about 0.4 to 0.5 when based on the radiographic evaluations of the hip joints of 2,404 German Shepherd Dogs born at The Armed Forces Dog Training Center in Sweden. The material included all dogs in 401 litters born at the Center from 1965 through 1973 that reached the age of 15 months. To be expected with such high heritability, frequency of hip dysplasia in the offspring was shown to be affected by the hip joint status of sire and dam as well as by the hip joint status of their parents and littermates. Even matings between sires with normal hip joints and dams with only slight dysplasia resulted in significantly higher frequency of hip dysplasia in the offspring, when compared with the frequency if both sires and dams had normal hip joints. Frequency of hip dysplasia in the progeny of sires with normal hip joints varied greatly. Since 1973, selection of the breeding stock has been based on hip joint status (phenotype) of the breeding animals and of their relatives as well as on what had become known about frequency of hip dysplasia in the litters already born (progeny testing). In this way, frequency of hip dysplasia in 347 dogs born at the Center during 1975 was lowered to 28%. This figure should be compared with the figure of 50%, which represents the frequency of hip dysplasia in the kennel up to 1970, when selection was not as strict as could be expected in a well-controlled kennel.

Animals

[Reliability, heritability, correlation in longitudinal studies (author's transl)].

An analogy exists between the mathematical models of psychological test theory and quantitative genetics, as well as between the parameters, reliability and heritability, derived from these models. With the same results, heritability and correlation in longitudinal studies are only different approaches to the same problem, the reliability of measurement in the long run, that is of fundamental consequence for personnel selection.

Anthropometry

Public opinion survey on heritable human genome editing in South Africa: a study protocol.

Heritable human genome editing (HHGE) presents new possibilities for the prevention of genetic diseases but also raises ethical and societal questions. While international surveys have explored public attitudes, particularly in high-income countries, there is a lack of large-scale empirical data from the Global South. In South Africa, previous work used deliberative public engagement to examine public perspectives. The present study aims to complement this by capturing public opinion through a cross-sectional survey, enabling direct comparison with deliberative findings. This study will recruit 400 adult participants residing in South Africa using targeted Facebook advertisements. A two-phase sampling process will be employed: initial screening for demographic information, followed by stratified sampling to ensure a representative South African population. The opinion survey consists of 19 HHGE scenarios, each explored through private and public moral lenses. Additionally, participants will indicate their interpretation of 'safe and effective' genome editing. Quantitative data will be analysed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression. Qualitative responses will undergo thematic analysis using both manual coding and generative AI tools under human oversight. The study includes two stages of informed consent and ensures data confidentiality through strict data handling protocols. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and policy forums. The study will also generate a secondary dataset for evaluating AI-assisted qualitative analysis, to be conducted under separate ethical clearance.

Humans

Selection for geotaxis in Drosophila melanogaster: heritability, degree of dominance, and correlated responses to selection.

Selection for geotaxis was carried out with flies from a natural population of Drosophila melanogaster; geotactic behavior was measured by means of a Hirsch classification maze. The population was initally almost neutral to gravity, and it responded to both positive (downward) and negative (upward) selection with a realized heritability of about 0.13. Stabilizing selection toward neutral gravity was carried out simultaneously. At generations 6, 9, and 10, all possibly hybrid crosses between pairs of the selected populations were generated and tested. The geotactic scores of hybrids in generations 6 and 9 were not significantly different from the midparent values, while the scores of hybrids in generation 10 deviated significantly from the midparent values in the direction of positive geotaxis. The frequencies of polymorphic inversions declined in every population during selection, but the population under neutral selection seemed to maintain a higher chromosomal polymorphism than those under positive or negative selection. There was no significant depression of productivity, measured as number of progeny, in any population during nine generations of selection.

Animals

Heritable catabolic and anabolic disorders of lipid metabolism.

The principal manifestations and metabolic defects in ten heritable disorders of lipid metabolism are discussed. Facile procedures have been developed for the diagnosis of patients with these conditions, the identification of heterozygous carriers, and the prenatal detection of any of these diseases. Enzyme replacement appears promising for patients with Fabry's disease and Gaucher's disease who do not have central nervous system damage. The clinical and biochemical abnormalities that occur in patients with a novel inherited disorder of ganglioside anabolism are described.

Adult

Strategies for detecting heritable translocations in male mice by fertility testing.

Data from a heritable translocation test were analysed to estimate the best rule for classification of F1 males in normals or partially sterile translocation carriers according to litter size or numbers of live and dead implants per mating. Six rules were compared for classification with up to three litter sizes per F1 male observed. The results indicate that a translocation rate of 2%, or at best of 1%, can be detected with reasonable cost.

Animals

Heritable disorders of connective tissue: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

The Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a relatively common heritable disorder of connective tissue. The cardinal features are cutaneous hyperextensibility, joint hypermobility, bleeding diathesis, and tissue fragility, and these features lead to a large variety of additional manifestations. Of the eight presently described types, four varieties have been found to be caused by defects in the biogenesis of collagen, the major structural protein of the body. Consideration of the clinical features and probable mode of inheritance will permit subclassification of many patients into specific types, and biochemical confirmation is possible for several varieties.

Child