Comment by timster6442
6 hours ago
From a molecular neuroscience perspective, for both ADHD and ASD (autism) you're unlikely to find any pure biomarkers as clean as a disease like huntingtons disease whose mechanism is clearly understood as extra CAG repeats on the HTT gene (a clean mendelian disorder). ADHD is defined by behavior/cognitive symptoms and most all behavior/cognitive diseases are multifactoral, which ADHD is. WES/WGS and GWAS has been done and for familial ADHD and unlike ASD there is mostly no clear monogenic mutation (a single gene that would explain the phenotype) [note monogenic mutations are usually a very small subset of cases but give scientists a look into what pathway/mechanism is causing a multifactoral disease]. Thus it is not for a lack of looking classically, and deficit is speculated to likely manifest as a neural circuit organization or synaptic issue (though the latter is more closely linked to ASD). This is currently impossible (basically) to measure in alive human brain as it requires nanoscopic imaging, note how challenging the fly map was (incomplete IMO as well).
There’s a doctor who goes by Russell Barkley, PhD on his popular YouTube channel and claims to be able to brainscan for ADHD with certainty. Is his claim legitimate?
ADHD also evolutionary advantages, so there is unlikely to be a single gene that encodes for it.
Evo-psych is impossible to falsify.
What are they? Are there papers on this?
There are only papers which suggest this could be true, none that conclusively prove it. That I’m aware of.
There are some cool studies done where people with a without ADHD are tasked to forage berries. The people with ADHD do better and adhere to foraging patterns which existing theories suggest would be more optimal.
A lot of the studies like that indicate the individual with the condition might benefit more from ADHD than the group they’re in, but I’m not sure that studies have explored group benefits very much.
There’s an often cited paper in which nomadic men who carry a certain ADHD-related allele (DRD4-7R, a dopamine reception variant with ADHD traits and novelty seeking) tend to have better nutritional status. I can’t recall much about it or how high quality it is.
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I don't know about papers but I had a doctor tell me they are overrepresented among snipers in the military. ADD could be an advantage to hunting.
1. How is it advantageous?
2. Assuming it really is: Why would this make it unlikely to be encoded on a single gene? As a layman, the only condition I'm aware of with this "downside but also upside" quality is sickle cell anaemia (downside is anaemia, upside is increased resistance to malaria), which is decided by a single nucleotide change on chromosome 11.