Role of Genetics in Conduct Disorder |
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Posted Date: 6/26/2009 |
Blog by: poost |
Viewed: 143
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Category: Mental Health Disorders » Conduct Disorder |
- Childhood conduct disorder is a problem which is either lightly dismissed off or overlooked. In many instances, children are unnecessarily made the scapegoats and their behavioral problems are solely blamed on them.
- But, recent studies like the Virginia twin study and an Australian twin study have revealed hitherto unexplored and undiscovered genetic links to childhood conduct disorder. In fact, genes may be responsible for as much as forty percent to seventy percent of the behavioral problem.
- As to the question of which genes would be responsible for this disorder, it was answered by Tatiana Foroud, Ph.D., an associate professor of medical and molecular genetics and psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine and colleagues who reported in the January ‘Molecular Psychiatry’, that two chromosomes, no.19 and no.1 were particularly suspect.
- Childhood conduct disorders like opposition and defiance are the most common and unfortunately also the most debilitating disorders which can lead to psychiatric problems. The spectrum of this range of behavioral disorder is vast ranging from mild ones like simple spitefulness, annoyance and vindictive behavior to severe (and, in most cases, rare) ones like extreme cruelty towards animals and adults and forcible sexual activity.
- Behavioral disorders in childhood are often linked to other childhood psychiatric disorders like emotional problems and attention-deficit disorders. Biological factors like brain damage and neurological disorders and cognitive factors like verbal-performance, reading retardation, IQ discrepancies have also linked to conduct disorders.
- The influence of family like parental unemployment, parental personality disorders or psychiatric problems and socio-environmental factors like staying in a poor neighborhood, overcrowding and school effects cannot be under-estimated and have all been shown to be linked to childhood conduct problems.
- Astonishingly, these studies also revealed that Chromosome 2 was especially intriguing as it seemed to be responsible for alcohol dependence as well. A Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism was conducted in the 1990s to identify genes which led to alcohol dependence. The survey included 1,227 individuals who were dependent on alcohol as well as at least two of their family members.
- The study interviewed all subjects aged 18 and above using the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism (SSAGA). This assessment (SSAGA) is used to diagnose childhood conduct disorder through a display of behavioral problems demonstrated before age fifteen. A critical thirteen percent of the subjects under survey met the criteria for a diagnosis of childhood conduct disorder.
- Foroud and her colleagues decided to take this further by taking 114 sibling pairs concordant for childhood conduct disorder to delve into the genetics of this behavioral disorder. Chromosome 19 was found to have the strongest link with conduct disorder and chromosome 2 was the next strongest link to this problem.
- The latter discovery "is especially interesting," as Foroud and her team pointed out in their study report, “Because this region of chromosome 2 also has been linked to alcohol dependence. . . .[In short] the overlap of the linkage findings for alcoholism and conduct disorder on chromosome 2 supports the suggestion from twin studies that conduct disorder and alcohol dependence partially share a genetic liability. . . ."
- The study was strengthened by the views of Samuel Kuperman, M.D., director of child psychiatry at the University Of Iowa School Of Medicine and another study co-author, "I think this is an exciting preliminary study that may lead to some future identification of the genes in conduct disorder. . . .This study needs to be replicated in a sample of subjects that was not selected due to a strong family history of alcoholism. Also, it would be important to do this study prospectively with children to see whether children who have these genetic markers have conduct disorder or develop conduct disorder during their adolescence." This research had been sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
- Going by the above evidence, the irrefutable facts are that certain genes are responsible in a large way for childhood conduct disorders as well as alcohol dependence.
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