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Comment by genxy

5 hours ago

ADHD also evolutionary advantages, so there is unlikely to be a single gene that encodes for it.

What are they? Are there papers on this?

  • 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.

  • 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.

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.