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Academic interest, autism and mental illness

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Kon
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08 Feb 2012, 5:02 pm

I'm not sure how valid this study is but according to this new study, students with a family history of autism tend to major in math and science, while substance abuse and depression are more common in the ancestors of humanities fans:

Quote:
From personality to neuropsychiatric disorders, individual differences in brain function are known to have a strong heritable component. Here we report that between close relatives, a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders covary strongly with intellectual interests. We surveyed an entire class of high-functioning young adults at an elite university for prospective major, familial incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders, and demographic and attitudinal questions. Students aspiring to technical majors(science/mathematics/engineering) were more likely than other students to report a sibling with an autism spectrum disorder (p = 0.037). Conversely, students interested in the humanities were more likely to report a family member with major depressive disorder (p = 8.861024), bipolar disorder (p = 0.027), or substance abuse problems (p = 1.961026). A combined PREdisposition for Subject MattEr (PRESUME) score based on these disorders was strongly predictive of subject matter interests (p = 9.661028). Our results suggest that shared genetic (and perhaps environmental) factors may both predispose for heritable neuropsychiatric disorders and influence the development of intellectual interests.

Familial Linkage between Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Intellectual Interests
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 030405.pdf

Science majors are from Mars
http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/0 ... -mars.html



caramel0
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08 Feb 2012, 5:55 pm

The study needs more respondants.

For example they say that 24 people reported family history of ASDs (this is not many), then break it down to 16/527 technical and 4/394 non technical (humanities and social science combined) => more likely in technical.
However if you compare the ratio of technical majors with history of ASD to ratio of undecided majors with history of ASD, they are nearly the same but the authors neglected to mention that :P (16/527 vs 4/156). I know my post is not a proper statistical analysis (the humanities number has greater weight due to more respondants etc), but still.

I'd deem it more interesting if they had more people to interview, but that obviously would cost a lot more.