Genes implicated in twins' autism | The Autism News - 1 views
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autism genetics genes twins research diagnoses environment
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Researchers have known for years that when one identical twin has autism, the other is also likely to be diagnosed with it – evidence that autism likely has a genetic component.
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Researchers at Kennedy Krieger Institute studied 277 pairs of twins and found that when one identical twin had the disorder, the other developed it 88 percent of the time; for fraternal twins, that figure was 31 percent.
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Despite this progress in unlocking the mysteries of autism, scientists have simply confirmed that there are likely numerous genetic links to autism.
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Each discovery explains just a tiny fraction of autism’s causes. Researchers think the great majority – 90 percent – of autism cases have a genetic cause, but they’ve found fewer than 10 percent of the triggers.
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researchers have found about 50 genes so far that might be tied to autism, which explain very few cases, he said.
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Autism isn’t one disease; it’s too individual to locate just one genetic cause. It’s not like cystic fibrosis, a disorder for which researchers have identified one gene – and tests to diagnose it.
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autism researchers envision that a wide variety of gene defects are responsible for the symptoms collectively known as autism spectrum disorders. The disabilities, different in each child, range from the mild Asperger syndrome to more severe impairments in social interaction and communication.
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“It’s going to take some work before we understand the true causes of autism,” he said. “We need to make much more headway to ever have enough understanding so that patient management and therapies can be improved.”
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None of the new findings explains why more children are being diagnosed with autism. Genes, said Goldstein, tell only part of the story.
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Autism may be inherited to some degree, but even twin studies show that not all sets of identical twins have autism. And when they do, they don’t always have the same severity of the disorder
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That connection between genes and the environment, called epigenetics, might explain these distinctions