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C O Gardner

Publications and source records attributed to C O Gardner.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1997

The risk for psychiatric disorders in relatives of schizophrenic and control probands: a comparison of three independent studies.

BACKGROUND: Although replication is the heart of science, psychiatric geneticists rarely have the opportunity to replicate findings, especially more than once. METHODS: This article reviews results from three independent family studies of schizophrenia on which one of us conducted diagnostic reviews: the Danish Adoption Study (DAS), the Iowa 500 non-500 family study (IFS), and the Roscommon Family Study (RFS). We utilized DSM-III or DSM-III-R criteria and meta-analysis techniques. RESULTS: The odds ratios (OR) in personally interviewed, first degree biological relatives of schizophrenic and matched control probands for schizophrenia, other non-affective psychoses (ONAP), schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), unipolar affective illness (UPAI), bipolar affective illness (BPAI), and anxiety disorders were homogeneous across studies. For alcoholism, ORs were significantly heterogeneous. Schizophrenia, SPD and ONAP strongly aggregated in relatives of schizophrenic probands with decreasing common OR estimates of 16.2, 5.0 and 4.0, respectively. The common OR for anxiety disorders was 1.1, indicating no familial co-aggregation. For UPAI and BPAI, the common ORs exceeded unity (1.3 and 1.9, respectively), although only the former was statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Schizophrenia strongly aggregates in families and shares familial factors with SPD and ONAP but not anxiety disorders. The familial factors of aetiological importance for schizophrenia and affective illness may be weakly related. With the exception of alcoholism, the patterns of psychiatric disorders in relatives of schizophrenic and control probands in these three studies were sufficiently similar that, despite their methodological differences, they can probably be viewed as replications of one another.

Adoption↗
PubMed1997

Religion, psychopathology, and substance use and abuse; a multimeasure, genetic-epidemiologic study.

OBJECTIVE: The authors sought to 1) understand the sources of familial resemblance for religiosity, 2) clarify the relationship between religiosity and current psychiatric symptoms, current substance use, lifetime psychiatric disorders, and lifetime substance dependence, and 3) explore the stress-buffering properties of religiosity. METHOD: Data were obtained by personal interview of 1,902 twins from female-female pairs in the population-based Virginia Twin Registry. Measures included 1) 10 items reflecting a range of religious behavior and beliefs, 2) a scale of institutional conservatism of current religious affiliation, 3) previous history of stressful life events, 4) current psychiatric symptoms and substance use, and 5) lifetime psychiatric disorders and substance dependence. Statistical methods used included factor analyses, Cox and linear regression, and twin modeling. RESULTS: Personal devotion and personal and institutional conservatism were all strongly familial, and model fitting suggested that this familial resemblance was due largely to the effect of environmental factors. None of the dimensions of religiosity was strongly associated with lifetime psychopathology or current symptoms, but low levels of depressive symptoms were related to high levels of personal devotion. By contrast, personal devotion and personal and institutional conservatism were significantly and inversely associated with current levels of drinking and smoking as well as lifetime risk for alcoholism and nicotine dependence. Personal devotion, but not personal or institutional conservatism, buffered the depressogenic effects of stressful life events. CONCLUSIONS: The dimensions of religiosity are not strongly related to risk for psychiatric symptoms and disorders. However, religiosity may be one of the more important familial-environmental factors that affect the risk for substance use and dependence. Religious devotion but not conservatism assists in coping with stress.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1992

Diverse mechanisms of plant resistance to cauliflower mosaic virus revealed by leaf skeleton hybridization.

Plants not hosts for cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) may prevent systemic CaMV infection by interfering with dissemination of infection through the plant or by preventing viral replication and maturation. Leaf skeleton hybridization allows distinction between these two barriers. The technique assesses the spatial distribution of CaMV in an inoculated leaf by hybridization of a skeleton of the leaf with a CaMV DNA probe. Leaves or leaflets of soybean, cucumber, peanut, tomato, lettuce, spinach, pepper, onion, wheat, maize and barley, inoculated with CaMV DNA or CaMV virions were processed for leaf skeleton hybridization either immediately after inoculation or two weeks thereafter. Autoradiographic images of soybean and cucumber skeletons had many dark spots suggesting that CaMV DNA replication and local spread had occurred. Images of onion leaf skeletons prepared two weeks after inoculation with CaMV DNA had fewer spots. To test whether these spots resulted from CaMV replication, DNA was extracted from inoculated onion leaves and analyzed by electrophoresis, blotting and hybridization. Molecules recovered two weeks after inoculation resembled those inoculated, indicating absence of replication. For the other species, we found no evidence of local spread of CaMV infections. Thus, many plant species resist systemic CaMV infection by preventing replication or local spread of CaMV, while others solely prevent systemic movement of infection.

Blotting, Southern↗