A BEHAVIORAL NEUROGENETICS APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENTAL-DISABILITIES - GENE-BRAIN-BEHAVIOR ASSOCIATIONS

This review provides a discussion of behavioral neurogenetics' contrib ution to understanding neurodevelopmental pathways in learning and dev elopmental disabilities. A brief overview is given of several common n eurogenetic disorders with various genetic etiologies including Down s yndrome, Turner syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, Angelman syndrome, an d Tourette's syndrome. Special emphasis is placed on fragile X syndrom e as representative of a newly-discovered class of genetic conditions characterized by an unstable trinucleotide repeat. A spectrum of cogni tive, behavioral, and social-emotional phenotypic features associated with fragile X syndrome is examined. Also included are findings from r ecent neuroimaging research and a discussion of the need for the class ification of symptoms on the basis of underlying genetic/medical condi tions.