by Katherine Harmon

The tangled web of autism symptoms and genetic markers has left researchers searching for patterns and trends in unusual places. New work examining the subtle symptoms shared by close relatives has underscored the disease’s heritability. Findings published online August 2 in Archives of General Psychiatry add to the growing list of familial clues about the disease: shared eye-movement deficits.

Researchers working at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s (U.I.C.) Center for Cognitive Medicine have found a striking trend: those with autistic relatives are more likely to show disrupted eye movement similar to their afflicted relation.

Large-scale genetic studies have turned up nuanced and conflicting results about the genetic basis of autism and its myriad symptoms. Other research has discovered that many people with an autistic relative or child might themselves have some subtle behavior variant as well, such as obsessive-compulsive tendencies or communication problems.  (more…)