Heritability and Familiality of Temperament and Character Dimensions in Korean Families with Schizophrenic Linkage Disequilibrium.
OBJECTIVE
Categorical syndromes such as schizophrenia may represent complexes of many continuous psychological structural phenotypes along several dimensions of personality development/degeneration. The present study investigated the heritability and familiality of personality dimensions in Korean families with schizophrenic linkage disequilibrium (LD).


METHODS
We recruited 179 probands (with schizophrenia) as well as, whenever possible, their parents and siblings. We used the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) to measure personality and symptomatic dimensions. The heritability of personality dimensions in a total of 472 family members was estimated using Sequential Oligogenic Linkage Analysis Routines (SOLAR). To measure familiality, we compared the personality dimensions of family members with those of 336 healthy unrelated controls using analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis.


RESULTS
Three of the seven TCI variables were significantly heritable and were included in subsequent analyses. The three groups (control, unaffected first-degree relative, case) were found to significantly differ from one another, with the expected order of average group scores, for all heritable dimensions.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite several study limitations with respect to family recruitment and phenotyping, our results show that aberrations in several personality dimensions related to genetic-environment coactions or interactions may underlie the complexity of the schizophrenic syndrome.
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.|Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.|Medical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.
Byung Dae
BD
Lee
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.|Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.|Medical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.
Je Min
JM
Park
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.|Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.|Medical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.
Young Min
YM
Lee
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.|Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.|Medical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.
Eunsoo
E
Moon
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.|Medical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.
Hee Jeong
HJ
Jeong
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
Young In
YI
Chung
Department of Psychiatry, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.|Medical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea.
Young Mi
YM
Yi
Dimension; Familiality; Heritability; Personality; Schizophrenia