Genetic Overlap Between Autism, Schizophrenia and Bipolar

Post Reply New Topic

This is an interesting article, although non-scientists might prefer just to read the abstract, introduction and conclusions:

http://genomemedicine.com/content/1/10/102

Basically, it discusses evidence that all three disorders (in particular Autism and Schizophrenia which are both strongly developmental) seem to have a common genetic basis in misfunctioning of the brain. This makes a lot of sense to me because I have never been able to categorise myself at all well, as I have (relatively mild) aspects of all three conditions - most of the time appearing as a borderline Aspie (in online tests I am always just below the threshold), but at certain times in my life have suffered from extreme depression (alternating with feeling fine, or more recently even quite high), and mild paranoia/thought disorder, which have required psychiatric treatment. Even as a child I remember a recurring hallucination I used to have and bizarre thoughts and phobias, which don't fit easily into ASD., but also rigid routines, obsessions and problems with social interaction, despite high intelligence and academic success. I haven't received any official diagnosis, even during my breakdowns, apart from that of depression - the first time they actually refrained from giving me any diagnosis because they weren't sure and decided I was too young to label (possibly wrongly). It would be interesting to know if I have a mutation in Neurexin 1 or something else mediating connectivity at synapses (in fact, as a geneticist myself, I have all the tools in the lab, or easily orderable to test particular genes, but not sure that would be wise). The outcome (which disorder and how severe) is likely dependent upon other genetic factors and environment. I know depression is common in people with ASDs, but this is generally thought to be due to failure of social interaction - i.e. caused by the ASD, and this article doesn't talk about unipolar depression, which I imagine has quite different aetiologies.

It would make sense that the genetics are related. My Aunt is Schizophrenic and Bipolar. Her son has AS. I have another first cousin who has bipolar disorder. I believe mental illness runs in my family. Deppression and drug addictions are also common in my family. I met some of my relatives in New York and some of them show strong AS traits. My grandmothers brother was a computer programmer. He seems very AS. It seems to run on my grandfathers side as well. I wouldn't be surprised if he had AS. He worked with computer for IBM. He is very knowledgeable in mechanics. He collects and skeleton watches and old cars and tractors. He would be very mild if he did though because his social skills aren't horrible. It seems like the people in my family with blond hair have the most problems. My schizophrenic aunt, bipolar cousin, AS cousin, and myself all have blond hair. My other cousin who is obviously AS has brown hair, but she's not actually diagnosed so maybe she's not as severely affected.

From what I know about all three disorders, they seriously cannot be related. Schizophrenia results in a different neural architecture that is measurably different from autistic neural architecture (I know this partly because in the childhood quest to rule out everything and anything they did an MRI to rule out schizophrenia just as a precaution... which was conclusive I would never develop the disorder). Bipolar is less of an issue with neural architecture as it is with the brain's chemistry... autism as far I know has to do with architecture of the brain, and less so issues of neural chemistry. Neural chemistry effects (like depression) happen to be side effects but not main effects from autism. The bipolar like symptoms are hardwired, unlike in people with actual bipolar where the symptoms are based on a chemical imbalance. Autism in general has many symptoms similar to other things, such as schizophrenia and bipolar, but the cause is completely different. Autism is hard-wired in a particular way... schizophrenia is hard-wired a completely different way (producing very opposite results), and bipolar isn't hardwired at all.

As for another article trying to connect people with autism to fairly shady psychotic disorders, it doesn't surprise me. It seems there's a general attitude within the scientific community, and generally all of people in power, to paint people with autism in as bad a light as possible. This is just another way of doing that. And from what I can see from the medical community is they produce far more crap science than even close to acceptable publications. Then again... the people doing the publishing more often than not lack a research degree, which explains a lot of this (though not all... this filters over in lesser severity to nearly every other field as well).

Temple Grandin also mentions the connection between ASDs and a family history of engineers, musicians, programmers etc... I've had quite a lot of those in my family. One of my relatives also had Cerebal Palsy. I even have a cousin in New York who reminds me of Rainman. He attempts conversion with everyone but he tells everyone the same thing in the same way. It was about his pen and his tape someone gave him. He is not Autistic though. He has brain damage.

Sorry if I got a little off topic but genetics are really interesting. If you look at your family history, you will probably notice the same kind of pattern.

If you looked at the brains of a large group of people with schizophrenia, compared to a control group, there is a large difference. At an individual level though, the difference is not significant enough to be diagnostic. It would be extremely useful if it were!

I have Asperger's Syndrome. My mom has Schizophrenia. My mom has a sister with some kind of mental disability. I do NOT have any symptoms of Schizophrenia or Bipolar. I only have Asperger's Syndrome.

I read this article last year since we are still participating in the SFARI volunteer work.

https://sfari.org/web/sfari/news-and-co ... tary%2Fall

If I recall correctly it appears that the chromosome 16p11.2 imbalance is attributed to schizophrenia, bipolarism, autism, or nothing at all. It seems that perhaps this imbalance is in some cases carried from one generation to the next. So any generation could display any one of the three mental effects or none when passed on. I believe there is a 50/50 chance that the imbalance is passed on to future generations. That's just skimming the surface and hoping that my memory of the article serves me correctly.

Also this link associates 4 chromosomes with autism ...2,7,16, and 17.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/411337

I for one would be curious to know if anyone else has been tested for chromosome imbalances.
My wife has an imbalance on chromosome 16 and mine is on 17. My son inherited both.

I'm sorry but I take issue with your post on several different levels. Firstly, as pointed out by someone else, schizophrenia cannot be diagnosed (or ruled out) simply by MRI scan, and neither can autism. Patients with schizophrenia have generally shown to have some disorganisation in the brain, but this is completely variable between individuals and not apparent in all. Autism is similar. It is true that bipolar is not so obvious on the large scale, but that doesn't mean it isn't hardwired (classic bipolar is strongly heritable). I know there have been some reports in the general press recently about autism and schizophrenia being opposite disorders, but firstly I don't trust what I read about science in the press (they grossly misrepresent things), and secondly this is nowhere near being a consensus - single studies give clues to things but are not conclusive about anything - the article I referenced is a review of several independent studies.

The second point that I really take issue with in your post is the second paragraph - firstly your assumption that scientists are trying to paint people with autism in a bad light - why would they do this, particularly given that a not negligable percentage of scientists are likey slightly autistic themselves (several definite Aspies in my department). Even amongst those without AS, I see no reason for them to try and paint autistics in a bad light, it makes no logical sense at all. Although many medics do not have research degrees, those that carry out genetic analysis and study generally do - and anyway, as long as the research is carried out acccording to scientific methods, this makes little difference to its validity.

Secondly, and this is what really makes me annoyed, is that you are effectively denigrating schizophrenia/manic-depression as 'shady psychiatric disorders' and people who suffer from them as being somehow 'lower' than those with autism. The fact is that autistics are no better than schizophrenics and no worse than so called NTs - we are all human whatever disorders we suffer from and the attitude of autistic superiority, particularly over other people who are suffering from defects in neural functioning and often end up with a worse deal than autistics, disgusts me.

In Schizophrenia and Related Syndromes, Routledge, second edition 2007, P.J. McKenna writes in the conclusion of Chapter 15 Childhood schizophrenia, autism and Asperger's syndrome that while autism and schizophrenia

I have symptoms of ASD, hypersensitivity, ADHD-PI, atypical depression, bipolar-II (Ok, you can say the four later are symptoms of ASD... but apparently not universal), migraines and ligamentous laxity.

My sister appears to have sluggish cognitive tempo and emotional hypersensitivity.

My mother have unknown anxiety problems (panick attacks, some bipolar symptoms), hypersensitivity and ligamentous laxity.

We three have a skin that cannot handle slighly high temperatures, like drinking hot coffee, that most people would not have a problem with. (It is not only sensorial, the skin really gets hurt)

Her mother (my grandma) has mild Asperger's symptoms and ligamentous laxity.

The father of my mother has some symptoms of atypical depression.

My father had symptoms of bipolar and atypical depression.

For my surprise, I have already found two other people with the same combination of symptoms as me, from different places in the world!!

I guess a problem with cell membranes cohesion has a role on all those symptoms, as already related to autism.

Ah, another common trait: high intelligence. (Me, my mom, her father)

Yes - this book was published in 2007. The article referenced at the beginning of this post is more recent - 2009, so presumably the genetic links have been uncovered since. This area of research is still very much in its infancy.

My brother is bipolar. As soon as he manifested it (bipolar and schizophrenia usually manifest later in life) he had some autistic like traits, like memorizing entire movies and being very sensory sensative. These traits did not manifest in childhood, they came out during puberty. He was a normal kid until that point, where I had problems since I was very little.

I can see the link though, schizophrenia and bipolar run in my family. So does depression and anxiety disorder. There being a genetic link is not to shocking. I have to say, seeing both schizophrenia and bipolar, I thank my lucky stars I do not have either of those two conditions.

I recently bought a good book called the imprinted brain by christopher badcock. his theorie is that autism and psychosis are caused by the same genes, but that same gene either being deleted or duplacated to create autism or psychosis, concluding that they may be opposite disorders. some people can develop both however by having a gene deleation somewhere, and a gene duplacation elsewhere. also there is no physical way to currently diagnose or rule out either condition although some things such as mri's, karyotypes, eegs, and other tests do help support a diagnosis.

My aunt has schizophrenia, my cousin has Bipolar. I have a few relatives with ADHD and depression also runs in my family and learning disabilties and language difficulties. I also have an uncle with depression and anxiety and he could have AS. He also has dyslexia. I have a dad with ADHD and depression and he has very little dyslexia in him, my brother also has depression.
My grandma might have AS too. My dad says she does but I don't know if he was saying that to make me feel better. My mom has agreed she might have it. But now she lives in a home for elderlies and she has Alzheimers. From what I heard about her, it sounds like my grandfather had always taken care of her and she couldn't always raise her kids so my uncle had to do it. So even young as eight he was already taking care of his brothers who were all under five. My mom said it was just too much for her. She also seemed to have split personalities. She had nasty streaks in her and she get mean for no reason because she had problems with jealousy. Even my mom had issues with her but she never let us kids know about it because she didn't want us to change our views on our grandma. She was great with us because we were her grand kids her son brought her. I didn't know about this until I was in my late teens.

My great uncle might have had AS too but I will never know. He never got married because "they were lot of work" and he even told me women were work. I don't know if he ever had a relationship but he told me he chose to not ever have one or even get married. He also didn't socialize with us when my grandparents have family meals for the holidays. He just go home after he get done eating. My mom said that was because he felt unwanted. I am not sure what to call that, low self esteem?

I have another aunt who has something. She is a drama queen and she gets upset over nothing and over reacts. Anything could set her off from what it sounds like. You can do something innocent and bam my aunt is mad at you about it and she won't listen when you try and explain it to her. I am not sure what she has. My husband said it sounded like manic depression.

I only have AS, anxiety, ADD, OCD. I had depression but I got over that. I was also diagnosed with sensory integration dysfunction and dyspraxia, language processing disorder, and clutterng before my AS diagnoses came along. I am the only one in the family diagnosed with AS. I wish I wasn't alone. At least I am not alone with anger issues or anxiety or depression or ADD or speech problems or learning difficulties.

I share the classic symptoms of AS. My family doctor said my well on the sectrum.
Have spent time in the hospital for being a threat to my self (depression)
I am also Dyslexic and mildly adhd also get Let down migrains (puking light and sound sensitive horror)
Belive me I know this is not a contest and I am relising I don't have much of a clue of what a person should say. Boy I thought I was relitively normal just a loner with real passions a short time ago. The world does not make any sense when Iam not absorbed in an obsession.
My question is: Is dyslexia common with Aspergers I have been told it is

Thanks

Yes, dyslexia is common in AS.