Developmental Changes in Genetic Relationships Between Traits and Disease: Analyses of Genetic Overlaps Between Social communication Difficulties, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Schizophrenia
Background The phenotypic overlap between Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia is complex and dates back to Kanner in 1943, including symptomatic similarities such as social withdrawal, communication impairment, and poor eye contact. Recent theories proposed a "continuum of psychosis" despite differences between disorders, based on shared genetic susceptibility among psychiatric conditions and genetic overlap with milder symptoms in unaffected individuals from the general population. Symptoms of ASD however typically occur during early childhood, whereas the first signs of schizophrenia appear during adolescence and early adulthood. Thus, genetic links with population based traits may also follow a developmental pattern. Our study was conducted to investigate genetic relationships between social communication difficulties during childhood and adolescence and both common variation in clinical ASD and schizophrenia.