In fact, autism is mostly genetic: The Population-Based-Autism Genetics and Environment Study Consortium, a multidisciplinary group of researchers, published a study in Nature Genetics on Sunday in which it found that autism is 55 percent heritable. Heritability represents the portion of a certain trait that can be attributed to genetics.
The most surprising finding in this study is that the genetic risk for autism lies mostly in variations of common genes, and not specific mutations. A small mutation in a single gene can cause a disease such as Huntington’s, and mutation of the BRCA1 gene increases a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer. These sorts of mutations account for only 2.6 percent of autism risk, according to the new PAGES study, compared with 52 percent accounted for by common genes.
Read more here.
