Abstract
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 = 8.8×10−4), bipolar disorder (p = 0.027), or substance abuse problems (p = 1.9×10−6). A combined PREdisposition for Subject MattEr (PRESUME) score based on these disorders was strongly predictive of subject matter interests (p = 9.6×10−8). Our results suggest that shared genetic (and perhaps environmental) factors may both predispose for heritable neuropsychiatric disorders and influence the development of intellectual interests.
Highlights
A link between intellect and temperament has long been the subject of speculation
The incidence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) amongst siblings of technical majors was significantly higher than that of non-technical majors and roughly twice the US average of 1 in 160 [10]
Our principal finding is that in a population of high-functioning young adults, intellectual interests are strongly related to the incidence of a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders in their families
Summary
A link between intellect and temperament has long been the subject of speculation. Aristotle claimed that ‘‘those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia’’, while the physician Benjamin Rush noted a link between manic episodes and ‘‘talents for eloquence, poetry, music, and painting’’ [1,2,3]. In the case of developmental disorders, a heightened prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has been found in the families of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers [6,7,8] These threads of evidence suggest that intellectual interests might be broadly linked to neuropsychiatric disorders. The students were ethnically and geographically diverse, and compared with the general population, academically motivated and relatively free to pursue their true interests [9]. This student body was biased towards middle and high socioeconomic status, groups with high levels of medical care and for whom familial neuropsychiatric issues are more likely to be detected and reported than in the general population. We obtained 1077 responses, which constitutes to our knowledge the largest cohort surveyed to date
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