14 December 2010

Hereditary, Cogenital and Environmental Causes

A selection of conditions with known hereditary, cogenital and environmental causes (mostly, but not exclusively mental health or personality related), are shown below. In some cases, where a condition or trait has multiple causes that are well established, a condition or trait appears in more than one category.

Strong hereditary component:

* Autism and here and here, and also Asperger syndrome
* Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and here and here
* Anti-social behavior in children, and physical aggression in children
* Psychopathy
* "Bad husband" traits
* Learning Disabilities related to language learning
* Vulnerability to emotional harm from bullying
* Neuroticism as a personality trait and propensity to develop generalized anxiety disorder, also many anxiety disorders including panic disorders, vulnerability to stress related disorders, and agoraphobia are at least congenital and many have identified genetic sources or hereditary sources
* Risk of developing and severity of depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence and drug dependence
* IQ
* Big Five personality traits
* Novelty seeking behavior
* ADHD
* Personality traits including: happiness, shyness, "well being", stress reaction, aggression, chance of never marrying, religiousity, propensity to watch television, and "Traditionalism, the endorsement of traditional family and moral values."

Probably at least congenital (i.e. present from birth), even if not genetic:

* Transgender identity
* Sexual orientation and here
* Implusivity

Stong environmental component:

* Depression (parental depression)
* Emotion trauma from child abuse
* IQ (lead poisoning) and here (environments matter more in negative situations than positive ones)
* Obesity (viral component of causation)
* MS (genetic component unlikely)
* Chronic fatigue syndrome (probably viral)

Cause not understood:

* Alzheimer's Disease (Diabetes or pre-diabetes may be an important risk factor)

1 comment:

Jude said...

Here's one of many sites that summarize research on a genetic link for MS: http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/research.html#genes