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Medicine Science Technology

Large Genetic Study Finds First Genes Connected With ADHD (arstechnica.com) 117

Posted by BeauHD from the first-of-its-kind dept.
A paper published in Nature Genetics this week looked at genetic data from more than 50,000 people, finding 12 different regions of DNA that seemed to play a role in increasing ADHD risk. Ars Technica reports: This evidence comes from a genome-wide association study, or GWAS: a close look at how the DNA of people with ADHD differs from those without. Geneticist Ditte Demontis and her colleagues used data from more than 20,000 people with ADHD, comparing them to a control group of 35,000 people without an ADHD diagnosis. They found 304 points where tiny differences in DNA -- like single letter swaps -- were distributed across their two groups in a statistically telling way. If any of those variants were very close together, the researchers counted them as representing the same stretch of DNA, grouping them together into 12 important regions.

There were correlations between the genetic risk for ADHD and a range of other conditions, including depression and anorexia. That ties in with the idea that genetic variation might be important in a way that plays out system-wide. Some of the genes they identified are also known to be involved in other neurological conditions, including speech and learning disabilities, depression, and schizophrenia.
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Large Genetic Study Finds First Genes Connected With ADHD More

Large Genetic Study Finds First Genes Connected With ADHD

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  • Please leave these alone (Score:3)

    by Felix Da Rat ( 93827 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2018 @11:15PM (#57712542)

    If humanity is to have any hope, it's going to come from the ADHD side of things. Cure all the diseases you want to, but please for the love of god, allow the natural flowering of creativity.

    Don't allow us to make drones and brainiacs - that will snuff out the species faster than any other eugenics program could.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, means your environment has a activity deficit resulting in a disorder, it is all in the way you put it. So boring environments play havoc with the moods of some people and variabilities like socio-economic upbringing and diet and exposure to environmental pollutants (sound, radiation, visual, smells as well as consumed toxins), will all impact the condition and alleviate it or make it worse.

      Probably it would help if those who were genetically poorly set up to handl

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mikael ( 484 )

        That's very true. I went to a state school with some ADHD kids who had been transferred in from other parts of the country? What triggered them? Boring lessons. History teacher who would make the class spend the entire hour just copying down notes from the blackboard. No discussion, just copy, copy, copy, then go to the next class. If you were lucky you managed to copy everything. If not, too bad. Language lessons would have everyone just stare at an overhead projector screen with pictures of things and the

    • I agree that there is probably a correlation between ADHD, creativity, and high intelligence.

      If we were to somehow remove the genetic tendencies and risk factors for ADHD from the gene pool, I bet we would lose more than half of our geniuses, more than that from the arts.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That might be the case, but I'm not completely convinced. (Going AC because this shit is too personal).

        It's a vague diagnosis to begin with and it almost seems like today some wear it like a badge of honor and think they're somehow smarter than everyone else. Or at least they think maybe the drugs they get make them better students.

        I was diagnosed as "hyperactive" back in the '70s largely due to pressure on my resistant parents from a private school principal. Yes, a doctor did the actual diagnosing, but

        • Re: Please leave these alone (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The diagnosis is not really vague. There are specifics.
          If you don't really meet them strongly, you probably don't have it.
          I have a son with it and we knew even when he was a baby that he was different. Turns out he matches the textbook symptoms and it is only with medicine that he can cope with his disability, i.e, participate successfully in society, and he has only a moderate case. None of his other brothers have ADHD.

          • Re: Please leave these alone (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            ADHD kids require movement to learn

            https://psychcentral.com/news/2015/04/20/for-kids-with-adhd-movement-enhances-learning/83703.html

            Better to fit the learning environment to them than medicate them to suit school IMO, both being diagnosed myself and with 2 children diagnosed.

            Some of the characteristics that are considered symptoms in school are rewarded in the real world. Others only show up if you let yourself get bored.

            I need to keep active and not take boring jobs. Not much of a disability really, it jus

      • Like Comrade Ogilvy, I agree in a general way; ADHD does seem to tend to present itself alongside extraordinary intelligence and creativity. However, just as they didn't find one and only one ADHD gene, it's really not the same for everyone, and not everyone with ADHD is necessarily a genius. It's true then that eliminating ADHD would probably bring about a net loss for human culture and achievement. However, achieving the most from ADHD requires proper treatment that is well-suited to the particular person

    • I have ADHD-Inattentive type - it destroys every aspect of my life and offers no benefits in return. If they had a genetic therapy available, I would take it in a heartbeat.

    • If humanity is to have any hope, it's going to come from the ADHD side of things. Cure all the diseases you want to, but please for the love of god, allow the natural flowering of creativity.

      Don't allow us to make drones and brainiacs - that will snuff out the species faster than any other eugenics program could.

      ADHD != "the natural flowering of creativity".

      ADHD actually gets in the way of creativity by making it difficult to focus.

  • Took long enough! (Score:5, Funny)

    by wolfheart111 ( 2496796 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2018 @11:33PM (#57712598)
    The Researchers kept getting distracted :(

  • I'll be a lot more interested if they manage to locate genes connected with nymphomania...and a simple, anonymous test to find out who has them.

    • Yeah, but then we need a data breach and a flaw that connects the carriers of those genes with their address or phone number (a picture would be nice, too).

  • ADHD, the disease of not wanting to be confined (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @01:45AM (#57712972)
    in a four wall box all day long doing meaningless tasks for a giant abstract system or learning to do meaningless tasks for a giant abstract system that normal healthy humans naturally want to do.

    • No, ADHD is the disease of not being able to brush your fucking teeth and also figure out where you left your briefcase before you leave for work because you are too fucking distracted to focus and can't remember shit (poor working memory).

      You obviously have no intimate experience with ADHD.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
        Yeah thats every kid diagnosed and strung on Ritalin because their soccer mom can't handle them.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          parent: "strung on Ritalin because their soccer mom can't handle them."

          You misspelled frigid divorced single soccer mom whose hysteria is driven by the fact that she can't get her nut off even with the aid of a 15 amp industrial vibrator".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      That's like saying depression is the disease of being sad. It's not that they don't want to be confined, it's that unlike most people they can't handle it to the extent that without treatment they can't function in normal society.

    • in a four wall box all day long doing meaningless tasks for a giant abstract system or learning to do meaningless tasks for a giant abstract system that normal healthy humans naturally want to do.

      That's not what ADHD is at all. That's like calling clinical depression "being sad".

  • Yes, shitty parenting that results in insufficient training in self-discipline does tend to be genetic, since they're genetically related to their kids. Very few people have actual ADHD compared to the sheer number with behavioral issues and impulse control.
  • ADHD is a learning disorder. Thus, the last sentence should read, " including speech and other learning disabilities, depression, and schizophrenia."
    • You'll find ADHD-negative people have a learning disorder compared to ADHD-positive people when the subject matter is of interest.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bengie ( 1121981 )
        Mmmm hyper-focus. A few cycles of mind wandering and hyper-focus can get someone with ADHD well ahead of the game when it comes to topics of interest. Make everyone else look like they're mentally retarded. The "hyper" in this case refers to the impatiences of the ADHD person having to wait for everyone else.
        • It worked great for me in Math and Physics because I like those. I'd read ahead while everyone else was learning the lesson because I couldn't stand the pacing. And because those subjects are cumulative, I'd be reading in order. It worked against me in History because I'd read the interesting parts, but I've never been in a class that covered the whole textbook, so I'd often read things that never made it into class and I really couldn't give a fuck the specific date something happened.
      • Yes, but it's still considered a learning disorder. One I also have.
        • And America is considered a democracy or a republic, despite the fact it is clearly an oligarchy. Likewise, faith is not considered insanity. On Slashdot, pedantry is a virtue (as it really should be everywhere else). Dogma is a sin. Hence my correction of your "correction".

  • Fake News (Score:2, Informative)

    by segedunum ( 883035 )
    'ADHD' is not a verifiable condition in any way shape or form.

  • Dammit! Stop interrupting me!

  • In this new era, ADHD is really coming into its own. It forces you to learn to process/simplify data faster, encourages the creation of external systems of organization and enables hyper-focus on areas of interest. These areas of interest may seem tangential at times, but relativity is the law of reality. Or as Dirk Gently might put it, the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

  • They can do that kind of stuff now yeah?

    • Can we CRISPR it out of us then? They can do that kind of stuff now yeah?

      Yes. And that's probably a bad idea. When a condition is so widespread in a species, there's a very good chance it's a species survival trait. Especially something that in an advanced form appears to be anti-survival. Heavily ADHD people have problems relating to people and so have problems reproducing. If the traits of ADHD are so important that an exaggeration of them is anti-survival, yet they're still present, they must matter quite a lot.

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