Schizophrenic and bipolar disorders are similar in several epidemiologic respects, including age at onset, lifetime risk, course of illness, worldwide distribution, risk for suicide, gender influence (men and women at equal risk for both groups of disorders), and genetic susceptibility. Despite these similarities, schizophrenia and bipolar disorders are typically considered to be separate entit...

We report the occurrence of achalasia and diffuse oesophageal spasm in brother and sister. The familial occurrence of these unusual disorders is consistent with the possibility that they share a common aetiology and indicates the potential importance of genetic predisposition.

Sizes of most kinds of animal groups vary considerably within a population, with group size often causing direct effects on the fitness of group members. Although the consequences of varying group size have been well studied, the causes of variation in group size remain poorly known for most animals. Groups might vary in size because different individuals perform better in differently sized gro...

Retrospective data on age at onset of smoking, reported by 3810 adult Australian twin pairs, were analyzed to determine the role of genetic and environmental factors in the onset of smoking. Results of nonmetric multidimensional scaling supported a two-process model in which different etiologic factors determined which individuals were at risk of becoming smokers and the age at onset of smoking...

adaptive behavior" as do associative procedures, they say; in both cases "the propensity of the animal to adapt by rejecting a novel or distinctive fluid is revealed" (18, pp. 18-19). As to mechanisms of associative predisposition, speculation seems to me to be premature. It might be wiser to wait until we have evidence that there is such a thing-evidence which the literature of flavor aversion...

Wilms tumor is a primarily sporadic disease, with only 1–2 % of affected individuals having a relative with Wilms tumor. However, bilateral Wilms tumors occur in approximately 5 % of cases, and Wilms tumor has been reported in association with more than 50 different genetic disorders, pointing to an underlying predisposition in further individuals. There is conclusive evidence of an increased r...

African states the overall incidence is only 5 Evidence for a genetic predisposition to gastric cancer per 100 000. In Europe, incidence rates are comes from both epidemiological studies and case between 20 and 40 per 100 000, and females have reports of gastric cancer families. Systematic caseabout half the male gastric cancer risk.1 control and cohort analyses of gastric cancer patients Appro...

Lichen sclerosus et atrophicus is a skin disease of multifactorial etiology which appears in patients with genetic or hormonal predisposition and autoimmune disease. Genetic predisposition is suggested by familial reports of the disease which involve twins, siblings, and mother-daughter/son series. This is a report of the occurrence of lichen sclerosus et atrophicus in monozygotic twin women, s...

The occurrence of contemporary ecotype formation through adaptive divergence of populations within the range of an invasive species typically requires standing genetic variation but can be facilitated by phenotypic plasticity. The relative contributions of both of these to adaptive trait differentiation have rarely been simultaneously quantified in recently diverging vertebrate populations. Her...