Scientists have shed new light on the genetic basis of dyslexia, showing how it overlaps with that of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Dyslexia and ADHD often occur together in people and they share many genes in common – links which make them distinct from developmental and mental health diagnoses such as autism, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, a study shows.
This study, led by the University of Edinburgh, is the first to explore the genetic links to dyslexia – believed to affect 10 per cent of the population – in the context of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric traits.
The findings could help in tailoring educational, employment and wellbeing support systems for people with dyslexia or ADHD, according to experts.
The findings aid understanding of the biology behind dyslexia – a difficulty with reading and spelling – and ADHD, a condition associated with difficulty concentrating, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh analysed large public anonymised datasets of genetic data from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium.
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They looked to find clusters of genetically similar traits for dyslexia and 10 neurodevelopmental and psychiatric traits including ADHD, anorexia nervosa and Tourette syndrome.
They conducted more detailed analyses to identify specific genetic regions that overlap between dyslexia and ADHD. Among the 10 psychiatric traits included in the study, five genetically linked clusters known as latent genomic factors were identifited.
ADHD was more strongly related to an attention and learning difficulties factor than with factors related to neurodevelopmental traits like autism and Tourette syndrome.
Follow-up analyses of the attention and learning difficulties factor identified 49 genetic regions and 174 genes shared between dyslexia and ADHD, of which 40 regions and 121 genes have not been previously identified.
Austėja Čiulkinytė, a Translational Neuroscience PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: “This is the first time that genetic links to dyslexia have been studied in the context of psychiatric traits. In the future, other learning difficulties such as dyscalculia or dyspraxia should be included to allow for a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between them.”
Professor Michelle Luciano, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, said: “By studying many related behaviours together we are able boost the statistical power for gene discovery.”
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