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The human twin birth rate in the United States rose 76% from 1980 through 2009, from 9.4 to 16.7 twin sets (18.8 to 33.3 twins) per 1,000 births. [5] The Yoruba people have the highest rate of twinning in the world, at 45–50 twin sets (90–100 twins) per 1,000 live births, [6] [7] [8] possibly because of high consumption of a specific type of yam containing a natural phytoestrogen which may ...
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]
The word zygosity may also be used to describe the genetic similarity or dissimilarity of twins. [6] Identical twins are monozygotic, meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos. Fraternal twins are dizygotic because they develop from two separate oocytes (egg cells) that are fertilized by two separate sperm.
Dizygotic (fraternal) twins can be caused by a hyperovulation gene in the mother. [8] Although the father's genes do not influence the woman's chances of having twins, he could influence his children's chances of having twins by passing on a copy of the hyperovulation gene to them. Monozygotic (identical) twins do not run in families.
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.
The formula is = where is the broad sense heritability, is the (monozygotic, MZ) identical twin correlation, and is the (dizygotic, DZ) fraternal twin correlation. Falconer's formula assumes the equal contribution of environmental factors in MZ pairs and DZ pairs.
One way to consider it is using trait X in twin 1 to predict trait Y in twin 2 for monozygotic and dizygotic twins (i.e. using twin 1's IQ to predict twin 2's brain volume); if this cross-correlation is larger for the more genetically-similar monozygotic twins than for the dizygotic twins, the similarity indicates that the traits are not ...