Genetic Associations with Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58445/rars.2888Keywords:
Dyslexia, ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Neurodevelopmental Disorder, Genetics, Comorbidity, Neurotransmitter, Genetic Association, TTRAP, TDP2, DCDC2, KIAA0319, ROBO1, DRD4, DAT1, SLC6A3, HTR1B, 5HTT, SLC6A4, DYX1C1, FOXP2, SORCS3, AMTAbstract
Dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are each highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorders. Dyslexia is a learning disability that generally causes difficulty in reading and associated language tasks while ADHD is associated with difficulty focusing and excess energy, among other symptoms. Dyslexia and ADHD affect approximately 20% and 5% of the population, respectively, and it is fairly common for patients with one of these disorders to also have the other (roughly 24% of people with dyslexia also have ADHD). The high heritability of both conditions suggests that genetics play a large role in their development. Various studies have discovered candidate risk genes and associated chromosome regions for these two disorders, and overlap between the associated genes and regions for both. This literature review overviews strong candidate genes and describes their functions, as well as some specifics of their associations. With this information, we hope to estimate how mutation in the genes would increase the risk of a patient having one or both of these disorders. The genes reviewed that were associated with ADHD or dyslexia individually encoded proteins with similar functions to one another—likely due to consistencies in how each disorder impacts neural functions—while the genes associated with both had more varied roles. Based on this finding, more studies should be conducted to strengthen the association between ADHD and dyslexia and these genes so that we can come closer to proving causation of the disorders.
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