A new research comes to suggest that autism genes are to be found in all of us. The study shows that a genetic relationship exists between autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) traits found in the wider population and ASD medical condition.
The new autism study has been performed by a team of international researchers including academics from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Broad Institute of Harvard, University of Bristol and MIT.
According to Science Daily, the research team studied the genetic relationship between autism and the expression of autism-related traits in populations not considered to have autism spectrum disorders. The results of the research were published this week in Nature Genetics.
The findings of the new study suggest that genetic risk underlying ASD affects a range of development and behavioral traits across the wider population. People diagnosed with autism represent only a more severe presentation of those traits. The genetic risk underlying ASD includes both influences not seen in an individual's parents and inherited variants.
Autism spectrum disorders are affecting about 1 in 100 children. The recent advances in genome sequencing and analysis allow shaping a picture of ASD's genetic landscape. Previous research has shown that most ASD risk is polygenic with just few cases associated with rare genetic variants of large effect.
According to Dr. Mark Daly, senior author of the study and co-director of the Broad Institute's Medical and Population Genetics (MPG) Program, these findings are supported by "a lot of strong but indirect evidence." Dr. Mark Daly added that measurable genetic signals including both polygenic risk and specific de novo mutations helped the research team to conclude that the genetic risk contributing to autism exists in all of us, influencing our social communication and our behavior.
Study co-first author Dr. Elise Robinson explained that behavioral and cognitive data in the general population can be used to study the mechanisms of different types of genetic risk. The same approach used in the latest study could be used to further explore the associations between behavioral trains and genetic risk in other neuropsychiatric disorders.
