Stassen
Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik » Affektive Erkrankungen und Allgemeinpsychiatrie Zürich Ost, Klinik für » Prof. Dr. Daniel Hell (emeritiert) » Stassen
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | Nongenetic Pathologic Developments of Brain-Wave Patterns in Monozygotic Twins Discordant and Concordant for Schizophrenia | ||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | Evidence from previous studies has suggested that the inter-individual differences in human brain-wave patterns (EEG) are predominantly determined by genetic factors. In particular, the within-pair EEG concordance of monozygotic twins was found to be typically as high as r = 0.81 across channels and frequency bands, thus being comparable to that between repeated assessments on the same individual with typically r = 0.83. Yet our investigations into monozygotic twin pairs discordant and concordant for schizophrenia yielded a significantly reduced within-pair EEG concordance for both discordant and concordant pairs (with concordance for schizophrenia assessed through a syndrome-oriented approach). A multivariate discriminant function of EEG parameters reproducibly distinguished between affected and unaffected subjects at an overall performance of >75% correctly classified subjects, while the severity of illness, as estimated from EEG-differences between affected and unaffected subjects, was closely correlated with the severity of illness as derived by psychopathology syndrome scores. Consequently, EEG anomalies associated with schizophrenia and manifested differently in the monozygotic co-twins concordant for schizophrenia are likely the effect of nongenetic, pathologic processes that developed independently in the co-twins’ genetically identical brains once the illness began to progress. We have recently started an EU-funded multicenter study "European Twin Study Network on Schizophrenia" that follows a twin approach to disentangling the complex interplay between genetic and nongenetic factors involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenic disorders (9 participating centers). Weitere Informationen |
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| Publications / Publikationen | Stassen HH, Coppola R. Torrey EF, Gottesman II, Kuny S, Rickler KC, Hell D: EEG differences in monozygotic twins discordant and concordant for schizophrenia. Psychophysiology 1999; 36,1: 109-117Dünki RM, Schmid GB, Stassen HH: Intraindividual specificity and stability of the human EEG: Linear vs. nonlinear approaches. Meth Inform Med 2000; 39: 78-82Umbricht D, Koller R, Schmid L, Skrabo A, Grübel C, Huber T, Stassen HH: How specific are deficits in mismatch negativity generation to schizophrenia? Biol Psychiatry 2003; 53: 1120-1131Stassen HH: EEG and evoked potentials. In: D. Cooper (ed) Nature Encyclopedia of the Human Genome. Nature Publishing Group, London 2003; 3: 266-269Weisbrod M, Hill H, Sauer H, Niethammer R, Guggenbühl S, Stassen HH: Nongenetic pathologic developments of brain-wave patterns in monozygotic twins discordant and concordant for schizophrenia. Am J Med Genetics 2004; 125: 1-9Buckelmüller J, Landolt HP, Stassen HH, Achermann P: Trait-like individual differences in the human sleep EEG. Neuroscience 2006; 138: 351-356Weitere Informationen | ||||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | brain-wave patterns, schizophrenia, mz and dz twins, discordance, concordance, developmental synchronies | ||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
Other Public Sources (e.g. Federal or Cantonal Agencies), Others |
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| In collaboration with / In Zusammenarbeit mit |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | May 2005 to May 2010 |