Genes, cognition, and communication: insights from neurodevelopmental disorders.

ABSTRACT: Twin and family studies have demonstrated that most cognitive traits are moderately to highly heritable. Neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia, autism, and specific language impairment (SLI) also show strong genetic influence. Nevertheless, it has proved difficult for researchers to identify genes that would explain substantial amounts of variance in cognitive traits or disorders. Although this observation may seem paradoxical, it fits with a multifactorial model of how complex human traits are influenced by numerous genes that interact with one another, and with the environment, to produce a specific phenotype. Such a model can also explain why genetic influences on cognition have not vanished in the course of human evolution. Recent linkage and association studies of SLI and dysl

SUBMITTER: Bishop DV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2805335 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature