On the Nature of Monozygotic Twin Concordance and Discordance for Autistic Trait Severity: A Quantitative Analysis

The characterizing features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are continuously distributed in nature; however, prior twin studies have not systematically incorporated this knowledge into estimations of concordance and discordance. We conducted a quantitative analysis of twin-twin similarity for autistic trait severity in three existing data sets involving 366 pairs of uniformly-phenotyped monozygotic (MZ) twins with and without ASD. Probandwise concordance for ASD was 96%; however, MZ trait correlations differed markedly for pairs with ASD trait burden below versus above the threshold for clinical diagnosis, with R²s on the order of 0.6 versus 0.1, respectively. Categorical MZ twin discordance for ASD diagnosis is rare and more appropriately operationalized by standardized quantification of twin-twin differences. Here we provide new evidence that although ASD itself is highly heritable, variation-in-severity of symptomatology above the diagnostic threshold is substantially influenced, in contrast, by non-shared environmental factors which may identify novel targets of early ASD amelioration.