background: although parental obesity is a well-established predisposing factor for the development of obesity, associations between regional body compositions, resting metabolic rates (rmr), and physical activity (pa) of parents and their pre-school children remain unknown. the objective of this study was to investigate parent-child correlations for total and regional body compositions, restin...

Social isolation and loneliness in humans have been associated with physical and psychological morbidity, as well as mortality. This study aimed to assess the etiology of individual differences in feelings of loneliness. The genetic architecture of loneliness was explored in an extended twin-family design including 8,683 twins, siblings and parents from 3,911 families. In addition, 917 spouses ...

Executive dysfunctions are considered to be putative markers of familial/genetic vulnerability to both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, familial resemblance must be demonstrated before executive functions are used as a potential endophenotype. The aim of this study was to investigate familial resemblance for executive functions in families of schizophrenic and bipolar subjects. We a...

The etiology of individual differences in general verbal ability, verbal learning and letter and category fluency were examined in two independent samples of 9- and 18-year-old twin pairs and their siblings. In both age groups, we observed strong familial resemblance for general verbal ability and moderate familial resemblance for verbal learning, letter and category fluency. All familial resem...

Metabolomics is the comprehensive study of metabolites, which are the substrates, intermediate, and end products of cellular metabolism. The heritability of the concentrations of circulating metabolites bears relevance for evaluating their suitability as biomarkers for disease. We report aspects of familial resemblance for the concentrations in human serum of more than 100 metabolites, measured...

This study examined the stability of genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in P300 amplitude during adolescence. The P300 component is an event-related brain potential (ERP) that has attracted much attention as a biological marker for disturbed cognitive processing in psychopathology. Understanding the genetics of this biological marker may contribute to understanding t...