Normal People With Higher Risk Of Developing Autism May Have Higher Intelligence

By Maria Slither - 13 Mar '15 10:38AM

Normal people carrying with them genetic DNA linked to autism may have higher chances of having higher intelligence.

A new research conducted by scholars from the University of Edinburgh said that people with genes of autism in their bloodline and have a greater risk of developing autism may have higher intelligence than the rest, a report from Science Daily said.

"Our findings show that genetic variation which increases risk for autism is associated with better cognitive ability in non-autistic individuals. As we begin to understand how genetic variants associated with autism impact brain function, we may begin to further understand the nature of autistic intelligence," lead researcher Dr Toni-Kim Clarke, of the University of Edinburgh's Division of Psychiatry said as cited in Daily Mail.

This study is published in Molecular Psychiatry and is funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, Scottish Funding Council, The Wellcome Trust, The Medical Research Council and Age UK.

According to Psych Central, researches from Edinburgh and Queensland have gathered some 1,000 random people from the population in Scotland who were underwent tests for general cognitive ability and received DNA analysis.

The findings were surprising as it is found out that even normal people with no traces of autism carried with them genetic traits associated with the disorder. Further, these people in general scored slightly better on cognitive tests.

The same tests were carried out among 921 adolescents of the Brisbane Adolescent Twin Study and the same results were derived. A link between autism-associated genes and intelligence was found out.

Meanwhile, Science Daily reported that the relationship between autism and intelligence is not clear. Even with this conclusion, the researchers still acknowledge that some autistic people have relatively well-preserved, or even higher than average, non-verbal intelligence.