NTR: Young Netherlands Twin Register

The Netherlands Twin Register (NTR) consists of individuals who have agreed to participate in twin-family studies and was established and is managed by the Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam (see: https://tweelingenregister.vu.nl/). The NTR was established in 1987 and has enrolled around 120.000 twins and a roughly equal number of their relatives. The majority of twin families have participated one or more times in survey studies on a host of epidemiological variables including social demography, personality, lifestyle, somatic and mental health, and subsamples took part in biomaterial collection (e.g. DNA) and dedicated projects for e.g. neuropsychological, biomarker, and behavioral traits. The recruitment into the NTR is fully inclusive without any restrictions on enrolment. The NTR is committed to actively seek the commitment of its participants to science and their continued involvement in NTR research by maintaining a website, electronic newsletters, and the MijnNTR portal that provides personalized feedback to participants. The NTR resources, e.g. the longitudinal phenotyping, the extended pedigree structures, and the multi-generation genotyping allow for future twin-family research that will contribute to gene discovery, causality modelling, and studies of genetic and cultural inheritance of behavioral traits and mental and physical health. In the CD2 portal, only the NTR projects for children and adolescents (<18 years of age) have been included. This is refered to as the Young Netherlands Twin Register (YNTR).

Purpose The research carried out by the Netherlands Twin Register focuses on the role of heritability in mental and physical health. For instance, the NTR investigates why some people become more easily depressed than others, or why certain people get diabetes while others do not. Other research areas include lifestyle and habits that influence health and disease, such as smoking, drinking and exercise. In the CD2 portal, only the NTR for children and adolescents (<18 years of age) has been included. This is refered to as the Young Netherlands Twin Register (YNTR).
Publisher
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Creators
Dorret I. Boomsma
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Contributors
YNTR administration
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Funding information
NWO
480-15-001/674
NWO
575-25-006
NWO
480-04-004
NWO
911-09-032
References
Boomsma DI, de Geus EJ, Vink JM, Stubbe JH, Distel MA, Hottenga JJ, Posthuma D, van Beijsterveldt TC, Hudziak JJ, Bartels M, Willemsen G. Netherlands Twin Register: from twins to twin families. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2006 Dec;9(6):849-57. doi: 10.1375/183242706779462426. PMID: 17254420.
Boomsma DI, Willemsen G, Vink JM, Bartels M, Groot P, Hottenga JJ, van Beijsterveldt CE, Stroet T, van Dijk R, Wertheim R, Visser M, van der Kleij F. Design and implementation of a twin-family database for behavior genetics and genomics studies. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2008 Jun;11(3):342-8. doi: 10.1375/twin.11.3.342. PMID: 18498212.
van Beijsterveldt CE, Groen-Blokhuis M, Hottenga JJ, Franić S, Hudziak JJ, Lamb D, Huppertz C, de Zeeuw E, Nivard M, Schutte N, Swagerman S, Glasner T, van Fulpen M, Brouwer C, Stroet T, Nowotny D, Ehli EA, Davies GE, Scheet P, Orlebeke JF, Kan KJ, Smit D, Dolan CV, Middeldorp CM, de Geus EJ, Bartels M, Boomsma DI. The Young Netherlands Twin Register (YNTR): longitudinal twin and family studies in over 70,000 children. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2013 Feb;16(1):252-67. doi: 10.1017/thg.2012.118. Epub 2012 Nov 28. PMID: 23186620.
Ligthart L, van Beijsterveldt CEM, Kevenaar ST, de Zeeuw E, van Bergen E, Bruins S, Pool R, Helmer Q, van Dongen J, Hottenga JJ, Van't Ent D, Dolan CV, Davies GE, Ehli EA, Bartels M, Willemsen G, de Geus EJC, Boomsma DI. The Netherlands Twin Register: Longitudinal Research Based on Twin and Twin-Family Designs. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2019 Dec;22(6):623-636. doi: 10.1017/thg.2019.93. Epub 2019 Oct 31. PMID: 31666148.
You can also access this dataset using the API (see API Docs).