Computerized EEG topography of normal preadolescent twins--correlating similarity of background activity with genetic relatedness.

The influence of genetic relatedness on the similarity degree of topographical EEG parameters was studied in a sample of 26 sets of monozygotic (MZ) and 46 sets of dizygotic (DZ) twins. All 144 subjects were healthy, primary school children, aged 7-15 years, 69 boys and 75 girls. Correlation coefficients were calculated for 50 quantitative EEG parameters of paired values obtained at each of 16 active electrode sites, in four groups of paired tracings: 1. MZ twins, 2. DZ twins, 3. The autocorrelated (A) group formed by correlating the spectral parameters from the same subjects in two different analyzed sequences, 4. The random (R) control group of 1200 unrelated pairs formed from DZ twin pairs. Sets of MZ twins and A group showed the highest degrees of similarity of spectral parameters over all brain areas except for significant differences only for some background features over posterior regions. In contrast, highly significant differences in topographic parameters were evident in comparison of MZ sets with DZ sets, particularly when MZ sets were compared with DZ subsets of opposite sex. Both number and degree of significant differences increased progressively in comparisons with groups 3 vs 2, 1 vs 4, and 3 vs 4. The data gave strong evidence for a complex polygenic determination of normal human EEG topography.