The Research Master “Genes in Behavior and Health” of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam is proud to announce the publication in Nature Human Behaviour of a review and opinion paper titled “Maximizing the Value of Twin Studies in Health and Behaviour”, written by Jana Hirzinger, Sophie Breunig, Dmitry Kuznetsov, and Kirsten Schut, who were RM students when the paper was written. They were joined by PhD student Susanne Bruins, post-docs Fiona Hagenbeek and Veronika Odintsova and by professor Dorret Boomsma. In their review, the team explores recent developments in twin studies, and the methodological advancements, addressing in particular topics of causality, gene environment correlation and interaction. They argue that stronger efforts to increase representativeness are needed to ensure representation of the general population and global diversity. They provide an updated overview of twin concordance and discordance for major diseases and mental disorders, which highlights the importance of understanding that genetic influences are not deterministic. 

Read more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01609-6 or view the 2.5-minute summary of the review https://youtu.be/vW_NyFKgfFI (in English) or https://youtu.be/K-fgs-wCdfM (in Dutch).