High genetic risk for a range of psychiatric illnesses appears to influence individuals' choice of urban or rural life, new research suggests.
Individuals with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (BD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or anorexia nervosa (AN) are significantly more likely to move from a rural to an urban setting, whereas those at high genetic risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were more likely to do the opposite.
The findings held even in those at high genetic risk who had never been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, highlighting a genetic factor that previous research linking urban living to mental illness has not explored.
Dr Evangelos Vassos
"It's not as simple as saying that urban environment is responsible for schizophrenia and everyone should move out of urban environments and they will be safe," study investigator Evangelos Vassos, MD, PhD, senior clinical research fellow at King's College London, UK, and a consulting psychiatrist, told Medscape Medical News. "If you are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia, you will still be predisposed schizophrenia even if you move."
The study was published online October 27 in JAMA Psychiatry.
Genetic Influence
The study results don't rule out environmental influence, but offers evidence that the migration pattern researchers have tracked for years may have a multifactorial explanation.
