Baron M, Mendlewicz J, Klotz J
Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1981 Nov;64(5):373-80. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1981.tb00796.x.
Age-of-onset data were gathered on first-degree relatives of 252 probands with bipolar and unipolar affective disorders. Early onset probands (younger than 40 at onset) had more early onset relatives and a greater risk for affective disorder among their relatives than late onset probands (40 or older). This indicates that age-of-onset is a familial factor correlated with the liability to affective illness. Multiple threshold models of inheritance were applied to the data using age-of-onset as a liability-threshold determinant. The hypothesis of autosomal single-major locus was ruled out. Multifactorial-polygenic inheritance provided a better fit to the data. The data suggest that early and late onset affective disorders can be placed at different thresholds on a genetic environmental continuum and that the early onset form is more deviant genetically than the late onset type. The implications for genetic research in affective disorder are discussed.
收集了252例双相情感障碍和单相情感障碍先证者一级亲属的发病年龄数据。早发型先证者（发病年龄小于40岁）比晚发型先证者（40岁及以上）有更多早发型亲属，且其亲属患情感障碍的风险更高。这表明发病年龄是与情感疾病易感性相关的家族因素。将多阈值遗传模型应用于这些数据，以发病年龄作为易感性阈值决定因素。常染色体单主基因座假说被排除。多因素-多基因遗传与数据拟合得更好。数据表明，早发型和晚发型情感障碍可置于遗传-环境连续体的不同阈值上，且早发型在遗传上比晚发型更偏离正常。文中讨论了这些结果对情感障碍基因研究的意义。
