PubMed · 7039716
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J R Miller. 1981. Dermatoglyphics.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7039716/
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While twin concordances for schizophrenia have been used to estimate heritability and to develop genetic models, concordances in subtypes of monozygotic (MZ) twins can also be used to investigate the influence of prenatal development in the etiology of mental illness. We used within-pair variability and mirroring of fingerprints to estimate retrospectively the placentation status of concordant and discordant MZ twins. The results indicate that concordant MZ pairs were more likely to have been monochorionic (MC) and to have shared a single placenta, whereas discordant MZ pairs appear more likely to have been dichorionic (DC) with separate placentas. Pairwise concordances for MZ twins without MC markers averaged 10.7 percent. In contrast, concordances for MZ twins with one or more MC markers averaged 60 percent. This suggests that simple MZ concordance rates may overestimate schizophrenia heritability and that prenatal development may also be important in the etiology of schizophrenia. Because MC (but not DC) twins usually share fetal blood circulation and hence are likely to share infections, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that fetal infections may be a significant etiological factor in schizophrenia.
A comparative analysis of dermatoglyphic prints of patients with the Holt-Oram syndrome and isolated triphalangeal thumbs was performed with control dermatoglyphics. A specific feature of the syndrome is a change in the main palmar lines and their termination on the radial border of the hand not only in the absence of the thumb but also in the case of formation of the abortive xT-line, its radiants, and the axial triradius. This trait may be considered diagnostic for the Holt-Oram syndrome. Cases of triphalangeal thumbs with preaxial polydactyly do not reveal significant changes in dermatoglyphic patterns and appear to result from partial duplication of the thumb. An isolated triphalangeal thumb may be the result of an atavistic development of homeotic transformation of the thumb.
Palmar main line modal types were used to calculate distance coefficients between Sardinian linguistic groups of males. By using correlation matrix analyses of the coefficients, we then determined whether or not the dermatoglyphic traits could reliably identify the biological relationships on the basis of the linguistic backgrounds of these groups. With Sanghvi's (X2)1/2 and by using palmar main lines both singly and together, we calculated dermatoglyphic distance matrices. Mantel tests of matrix correspondence showed that, by using C and D lines singly or all palmar main lines together, statistical significance between dermatoglyphic and linguistic distances can be obtained, even when the effect of geography is removed; there is no statistically significant correspondence between geographic and dermatoglyphic distance matrices, even when the effect of language is removed. Considering the historical and linguistic background, the results obtained by means of the Mantel test procedure, and the present dermatoglyphic differences in Sardinian linguistic groups of males, we can hypothesize that these groups were already genetically differentiated before the Romance languages and their respective dialects developed.