Early- and late-diagnosed autism are genetically distinct Analyses of symptoms and genomic data indicate that autism that manifests in early childhood is distinct from autism that is diagnosed later in development.

Age at diagnosis is gaining attention in autism research.

AaD is heritable, with genetic factors influencing whether someone is diagnosed earlier or later. The genetic correlation is only moderate, suggesting differing genetic profiles.

Commentary: doi.org/10.1038/d415...

#autism #genetics

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Humans live many more years than mice, but our brain networks are aging much faster.

Brain network decline follows a common trajectory across mouse and human adulthood, with features of network organization linked to more rapid decline.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Something big is happening in AI — and most people will be blindsided | Fortune It’s not like a light switch... more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.

This piece really nails how I have been feeling in the last couple of weeks. fortune.com/2026/02/11/s...

Genomic insights into substance use and disinhibitory disorders Externalizing spectrum disorders- spanning attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, substance use disorders, and other disorders characterized by disinhibition - frequently co-occur...

Our multi-ancestry GWAS of EXTernalizing conditions (ADHD, substance use...) in ~4M people reveals neurodevelopmental risk, drug-repurposing targets, and yields one of the strongest psychiatric polygenic indices yet! 🧬🎉 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Embryo selection company Herasight goes all in on eugenics ...

I wrote about the bizarre case of Herasight, the embryo selection company going all in on eugenics.

For more context, see also the @nature.com News & Views article about this work, where I unpack what it means when genetic risk for psychiatric disorders overlaps with normal-range traits, including some positive associations with education-related outcomes: rdcu.be/eT4U7

Mapping the genetic landscape across 14 psychiatric disorders - Nature Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders...

1/4 Thrilled to be sharing new work published today in Nature describing the third wave of results from the PGC Cross-Disorder Group. This reflects a massive group effort to examine shared and unique genetic signal across >1 million cases for 14 psychiatric disorders. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Twins Are So Much More Interesting Than Heritability Estimates On starting places, "missing environmentality," and the Waddington landscape of life

I wrote about missing heritability, "missing environmentality," and why I still think twin studies are interesting and valuable: kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/twins-are-...

Genetic associations with educational fields - Nature Genetics Genome-wide analyses of 10 educational fields identify 17 associated loci. Analysis of genetic clustering across specializations identifies two key dimensions that show genetic overlap with personalit...

1/ 🚨New paper in Nature Genetics

Genetic factors are associated with the educational fields people study, from arts to engineering.

Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
FAQ: www.thehastingscenter.org/genomic-find...

Non-paywalled link to my commentary on @vw1234.bsky.social and colleagues new paper in @nature.com rdcu.be/eI2NG

Polygenic and developmental profiles of autism differ by age at diagnosis - Nature A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

This was a fantastic collaboration with lots of people including @hilarycmartin.bsky.social @jakobgrove.bsky.social, Experts by Experience, and several others who I can't seem to find on this app.

Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Early- and late-diagnosed autism are genetically distinct Analyses of symptoms and genomic data indicate that autism that manifests in early childhood is distinct from autism that is diagnosed later in development.

And a very helpful and informative commentary on the paper by @tuckerdrob.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Keynote speakers: @tuckerdrob.bsky.social @foswald.bsky.social Ellen Hamaker

Hands-on workshops by:
@tedmond.bsky.social & @ukuvainik.bsky.social (genomic analyses)
@dirkwulff.bsky.social (LLMs in personality research)

www.ecp22edinburgh.org/programme

A deep and thought-provoking lecture that is definitely worth watching all the way through.

Let’s not “memory hole” the Flynn Effect, whereby objective cognitive measures show large mean cohort trends that are not plausibly reflective of any sort of general aspect of intelligence, but the individual correlates are largely invariant across generations.

But what is messy? What is late? Still subject to frame of reference.

Perhaps not peer comparison but shifting frame-of-reference, concept of normative or ideal, use of language… what @michelnivard.bsky.social likens to a vowel shift. Not necessarily the case, but important to consider, rather than trusting mean trends in self-report as veridical without question.

The interpretation is that the charter schools increase conscientiousness, self control, & grit... but also make students more self-critical with respect to those skills (perhaps they are cured of a Dunning-Krueger effect), such that self reports of those skills go down while the skills improve. 5/5

One of the coolest examples of this is a natural experiment (lottery study) for oversubscribed charter schools (doi.org/10.3102/0162...). The charter schools increased student achievement but reduced self-reported noncognitive skills that are known to relate to achievement. 4/

they may be misleading when comparing across cultures, cohorts, or possibly developmental periods due to different ways that people interpret the questions and use the likert scales, reference bias, etc... 3/

Unfortunately, "objective" observation- and task-based methods for measuring personality have much weaker construct validity and criterion validity. While self-reports are a great way to measure individual differences in personality among people matched on culture and context... 2/

A few related conversations have been converging on the question of when various trends and observations with respect to personality are genuine. This is a complex issue without a simple answer... A key issue is that personality is best measured using self- or informant ratings... 1/

The twin/family studies were not clear whether it was dominance vs. epistasis vs. some other sort of nonadditivity. Dominance was just the easiest to model. We can now estimate dominance SNP h2 but can’t obtain an estimate of epistatic SNP h2. Assimilation/contrast effects may also be at play.

To close the loop on this, this is what we wrote in the review (originally posted on the other platform).

Psychiatric Genetics Beyond Heritability: Q&A with Michel Nivard We look for genes as a means to an end—biology, epidemiology, and etiology of complex human outcomes.

Psychiatric Genetics Beyond Heritability: Q&A with Michel Nivard ( @michelnivard.bsky.social )

“We look for genes as a means to an end—biology, epidemiology, and etiology of complex human outcomes.”

www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/psychiatri...

Humbled to receive the BGA's early career award ☺️ Thank you to my brilliant team #MPRGBiosocial, the @maxplanck.de for investing in early career researchers, @mpib-berlin.bsky.social for the excellent environment, and my many mentors incl @kph3k.bsky.social @tuckerdrob.bsky.social #ScienceTeamSport

Omg 😂. Well played @michelnivard.bsky.social

O, right I promissed JUICE! Not everyone believes in this work, one of the "haters" was very early... In fact @ent3c.bsky.social practically leant over this papers' crib and said: "well that's not going to be a looker."... Someone just as petty as me, but far more organized, kept the receipts 👇

You will have seen this post by @tedmond.bsky.social‬ on our new GWAS of Personality. He says you should read the paper (you should), I want to write a thread to entice you. Because social media has shredded your attention as it has mine, I promise there is JUICE & BEEF in this thread!