Review: asd heritability

Nadia nahal Hossainy,1,* Seyed abbas mirzaei,2 Fatemeh elahian,3

1. Student's Research Committee, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran
2. Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Basic Health Sciences, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Ir
3. Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Basic Health Sciences, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Ir

Abstract

Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (asd) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders; due to its high occurrence rate and the burden it causes for the patients and their families as well as the financial expense it has for governments, research on finding its cause in order to prevent it should be amongst top priorities for many research centers.

Methods

The terms “asd (or autism) and heritability” and “asd (or autism) twin studies” were searched in pubmed central and science direct databases. our focus was more on recent studies printed in journals with higher impact factors that have studied asd rather than only one of the illnesses in this spectrum, particularly meta-analysis (e.g., tick and colleagues meta-analysis).

Results

Older studies pointed to asd having a high heritability (about 90%), although recent studies suggested that asd’s heritability is not as high as it was believed to be (as low as 60%); one of these studies includes a study by hallmayer and colleagues in 2011 which is considered one of the largest and most standard asd twin studies.

Conclusion

Lower heritability and the involvement of environmental factors in the development of asd can explain the high rate of de novo mutations in patients, increased age of the parents of the patients, increase in the rate of asd in industrial countries, and the variable phenotypes of asd. although the exact percentage of the role of environmental factors in the development of asd cannot easily be determined, yet it is clear that it plays an important role.

Keywords

Asd, autism, heritability