Cooperative Continua

Genetic risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is present, to some degree, in all of us. This is because ASDs are polygenic traits, meaning that they reflect the aggregate influence of many thousands of common, inherited variants across the genome. Individually, each of these common variants carry a small amount of ASD risk. This is by necessity, as any genetic difference that confers a large amount of risk for a fecundity-reducing outcome, like ASD, cannot be common in the population (1). Therefore, if a risk variant for ASD is common —present in many or most of us—its effect is small.

Source: Biological Psychiatry - February 1, 2021 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Elise B. Robinson Tags: Commentary Source Type: research