Genetic relationships between ten neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Credit: Molecular psychiatry (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41380-024-02649-8
Scientists have shed new light on the genetic basis of dyslexia, showing how it overlaps with that of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The study, led by the University of Edinburgh, is the first to explore genetic links to dyslexia – which is thought to affect 10% of the population – in the context of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric traits.
These findings could help tailor targeted education, employment and well-being support systems for people with dyslexia or ADHD, experts say.
These findings help understand the biology behind dyslexia (a difficulty with reading and spelling) and ADHD, a condition associated with difficulty concentrating, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh analyzed large, anonymized public datasets of genetic data on 10 neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, as well as genetic statistics on dyslexia from an analysis of about a million people in collaboration with 23andMe, a genomics and biotechnology company.
They used a statistical tool to find clusters of genetically similar traits for dyslexia and 10 neurodevelopmental and psychiatric traits, including ADHD, anorexia nervosa and Tourette syndrome.
They conducted more detailed analyses to identify specific genetic regions that overlap between dyslexia and ADHD.
Among the 10 psychiatric traits included in the study, five genetically linked clusters known as latent genomic factors were identified.
ADHD was more strongly linked to attention and learning difficulties than to factors related to neurodevelopmental traits such as autism and Tourette syndrome.
Follow-up analyses of the attention and learning difficulties factor identified 49 genetic regions and 174 genes shared between dyslexia and ADHD, of which 40 regions and 121 genes had not been previously identified.
“This is the first time that genetic links with dyslexia have been studied in the context of psychiatric traits. In the future, other learning disabilities such as dyscalculia or dyspraxia should be included to allow for a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between them,” says Austėja Čiulkinytė, a PhD student in translational neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study.
“By studying many related behaviors together, we are able to increase the statistical power of gene discovery,” adds Professor Michelle Luciano of the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences.
The work is published in the journal Molecular psychiatry.
More information:
Austeja Ciulkinyte et al, Genetic clustering of neurodevelopment and dyslexia, Molecular psychiatry (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41380-024-02649-8
Provided by the University of Edinburgh
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