Clear Genetic Links to Poor Impulse Control, Drug Dependency

University of Michigan medical researchers have identified genetic links to aberrant brain function leading to alcohol and drug dependencies.

The results, published online April 12 in Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that variations in the GABRA2 gene contribute to the risk of alcoholism by influencing impulsive behaviors, at least in part through a portion of the cerebral cortex known as the insula, says study senior author Margit Burmeister, Ph.D., research professor at U-M's Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute.

...Individuals under distress who also have the risky genetic variant tend to act impulsively, a behavior that may lead to the development of alcohol problems, says lead author Sandra Villafuerte, Ph.D., a research investigator at U-M's Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychiatry.

"Developing deeper understandings of the various genetic and environmental factors involved in risky behaviors may guide prevention and treatment efforts in the future," Villafuerte says.

The study included 449 people, who came from 173 families – 129 of whom had at least one member diagnosed with alcohol dependence or abuse. Those with certain variations in the GABRA2 gene were more likely to have alcohol dependence symptoms and higher measures of impulsiveness in response to distress, the study found. Stronger associations were found in women than in men.

...Researchers also used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to observe changes of blood flow in the brains of 44 young adults from these families as they performed a task in which they anticipated winning or losing money.

"The neuroimaging allowed us to see for the first time how these genetic variants create differences in how the brain responds in certain situations," says Mary M. Heitzeg, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in U-M's Department of Psychiatry and U-M's Addiction Research Center.

They found that individuals with one form of the GABRA2 gene associated with alcoholism showed significantly higher activation in the insula when anticipating rewards and losses than those with other combinations. This higher activation was also related to a greater level of impulsiveness in response to distress.

..."We believe these results suggest GABRA2 exerts an influence on an underlying neural system that impacts early risk factors and, later, alcohol dependency," says Burmeister, also a professor of psychiatry and human genetics at the U-M Medical School. "In the future, we hope to further examine the effects of family environment and other behavioral and environmental factors." _PO

Genetic influences on behaviours are too numerous to count, yet are extremely difficult to pin down with specificity. That is because multiple causes at several different levels are influencing the events which we observe. It will take many years to sort the many levels of causation -- many of them circular (incorporating feedbacks) in nature.

Persons who are indoctrinated into the religion of political correctness tend to eschew all discussion of genetic influences on behaviour. Funding for research can be difficult to obtain if highly indoctrinated "ethicists" feel that the valid findings of the research may be misconstrued in a way as to contradict politically correct dogma.

But such a PC approach only dooms persons who suffer from genetic disadvantages of behaviour to lifetimes of suffering. Much better to learn everything we can about these phenomena, so as to be able to compensate for these genetically based behavioural and cognitive disadvantages on as many levels as possible.

One approach to compensating for genetic defects in brain functioning is to run a low level dc current through the skull into the brain.

Better Genes, Better Brains

Better brains tend to run in families. The crucial brain determinants of life success -- IQ and Executive funtion -- are between 60% and 80% heritable. Exciting new tools for studying the genomics of the brain, such as the Allen Human Brain Map (read more here), are being used in conjunction with imaging tools such as diffusion tensor imaging, to study the individual nature of how human brains manifest underlying genomes.

A recent study from Australia looks at how genetics influences the efficiency of how human brains are wired -- and how well they work.

“Some brains are wired better than others, and 60% of the differences can be explained by genetic factors,” said lead author Alex Fornito from the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre at the University of Melbourne. “The novelty is that we now have new methods to identify different aspects of brain network organisation. Previously it was very difficult to try and map these connections.”

...“We found some of the strongest effects in the prefrontal cortex, where up to 80% of the differences between people were attributable to genes. The prefrontal cortex plays a vital role in planning, strategic thinking, decision-making and memory.”

Previous work has shown that people with more efficient brain connections score higher on tests of intelligence, and that brain network cost-efficiency is reduced in people with schizophrenia, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. _Cosmos

Finding the links between genes and intelligence, or between genes and impulse control, requires extensive research and great deal of time. At the US NIMH, the Functional Neurogenomics Program is dedicated to teasing out the numerous connections between the genome and all aspects of brain function. Likewise, in research centers around the world, scientists are hard at work discovering how differences in our genes create differences in our brains, which create differences in the worlds which each of us experiences.

This is not merely an academic problem. The endeavour holds keys to unlocking many of the most vexing problems of human societies worldwide.

What Compelled 20+ Black Men to Rape One 11 year old Girl?

Gang Rape Suspects
The gang rape allegedly occurred months ago, but is just now hitting the news more widely, due to attempts by NY Times reporters and black activists to make the accused into victims, and the 11 yo victim into the perpetrator.

Steve Sailer takes the NYTimes to task for its one-sided coverage of the story. And for good reason. More from Jezebel.com, which does a better job of covering the story than the NYTimes!

In December, police learned of the assault when an elementary school student told a teacher about a cellphone video featuring one of her classmates. Authorities say that on November 28, the girl was offered a ride by a 19-year-old who took her to his house, then ordered her to take her clothes off, saying she's be beaten if she didn't. She was raped by several men and boys, then moved to the trailer where more assaults occurred as the attackers took cellphone videos and photographs.

The New York Times published a story today about how the case has torn apart the town, and the paper chooses to focus on the plight of the accused men. The author says the town is wondering "how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?" as if they were tricked into gang raping a child. Then there's this quote:

"It's just destroyed our community," said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. "These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives."

Though, of course, the accused are innocent until proven guilty, it's hard to believe that anyone's first concern would be about how the men will live with what they did. It's even more incredible that the Times decided to include the quote in the story, but it doesn't end there. _Jezebel

Black men commit far more violent crime than men of other races, although the reasons for this difference are not entirely clear. Some attribute the differences to hormonal levels, other focus on low intelligence levels. Al Fin sociologists feel that "a culture of resentment" running rampant inside black communities and cultures is at least partially responsible for high crime rates among black men.

One additional factor which must be discussed is the issue of "impulse control", one part of pre-frontal lobe "executive function." Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi published a detailed look at the relationship between impulse control and crime. It should be noted that executive function -- like IQ -- is highly heritable. It should also be noted that the developmental window for optimising executive function through training, is open between the ages of roughly 4 to 8 years of age. In communities where the illegitimacy rate is roughly 70%, early childhood training is likely to be poor to non-existent.

Here's a quick look at one particular hormone, testosterone:

Take testosterone in a prison. Dabbs' team found that criminal violence and aggressive dominance among women in prison is linked to higher levels of testosterone. An earlier study of male inmates found testosterone levels to be highest among male inmates convicted of violent crimes such as rape, murder and assault. Variables such as age, social factors and other hormones were seen as important in these studies.

Take testosterone and 'delinquency'. Comparing college students with men and women of similar age in a "delinquent urban subculture" (identified as skinheads, bouncers, bartenders, strippers), "delinquents" had higher testosterone levels than college students. (Personally, boxing the range of research subjects into a "delinquent urban subculture" sounds questionable, but anyway...)

Take testosterone in the workplace. Dabbs' team examined the salivary testosterone in seven vocation groups of men, as well as an unemployed group. They found that actors and footy players had higher levels than religious ministers. Dabbs related testosterone to dominance and antisocial tendencies, which in turn, he suggests, effect vocational preferences in subtle ways. Other studies reveal traditional 'white collar' workers possess lower testosterone than traditional 'blue collar' workers. _abc.net

Many more factors are involved, and free testosterone is not the only androgenic hormone in circulation. In addition, androgenic receptors come in different types, and different receptor types may influence behavioural reaction to any given testosterone level differently.

We know from examples such as the Wichita Massacre and the Knoxville Horror, that there is almost certainly an element of racial hatred involved when such gang rapes are combined with murder. Young women students who are raped and murdered on and near college campuses in American cities are often the victim of whatever combination of racial hatred, hormonal imbalance, low impulse control, and low intelligence which may drive young black male crime.

In the case of the young Texas girl, at least she was not murdered. I am personally more concerned about her future welfare than that of the rapists. It is true, however that society is going to have to live with these bad boys for many years. So it would be best for society to stop covering up this type of crime, stop making excuses for the perpetrators, and get to the bottom of what is driving this all-too-common type of interracial crime.

More: Here is the NYTimes story about the gang rape, published about 3 months after the assault, written more like a PC cover-up than a belated news report. Contrast this excuse-making "coverage" with the unrelenting attacks by the NYT against the Duke lacrosse team players who were later found innocent of all charges against them.

Update -- 14March2011 -- Meanwhile in Sweden: 20 Muslim Immigrants Gang Rape 11 yo Swedish Girl and Gang Rape and Genocide in Cote d'Ivoire and on it goes in ghetto after township after shanty town