Genetics advances and learning disability

Abstract

Background: Medicine is rapidly becoming molecular medicine, and little escapes the grasp of modern genetics. Most disorders associated with learning disability have at least a genetic component influencing their expression; in many disorders, disturbances of genetic mechanisms play a pivotal role.

Aims: Dynamic mutations, imprinting mechanisms and gene-dosage effects are explained with reference to genetic disorders that lead to learning disability.

Method: A review of recent important studies in the genetics of learning disability.

Results: A host of new genetic connections to conditions associated with learning disability have been made.

Conclusions: A basic understanding of these genetic connections is important for all learning disability psychiatrists if they are to follow the rapid changes--already beginning to influence our practice--that hold immense promise for the future.