Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017:1666:171-194.
doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7274-6_9.

Estimating Heritability from Twin Studies

Katrina L Grasby  1 , Karin J H Verweij  1   2 , Miriam A Mosing  3   4 , Brendan P Zietsch  5 , Sarah E Medland  6
Affiliations

Estimating Heritability from Twin Studies

Katrina L Grasby et al. Methods Mol Biol. 2017.

Abstract

This chapter describes how the heritability of a trait can be estimated using data collected from pairs of twins. The principles of the classical twin design are described, followed by the assumptions, and some possible extensions of the design. In the second part of this chapter, two example scripts are presented and the basic steps for estimating heritability using the statistical program OpenMx are explained. OpenMx and the scripts used for this chapter can be downloaded so that readers can adapt and use the scripts for their own purposes.

Keywords: Behavior genetics; Classical twin design; Environment; Genetics; Heritability; OpenMx; Quantitative genetics; Twin; Twin modeling.

PubMed Disclaimer

LinkOut - more resources