In an online survey, over 1,000 new Princeton undergrads were asked about their intended major and whether anyone in their family had been diagnosed with one of 16 neurological and psychiatric disorders. More details here.
Of the 16 maladies, 5 were so rare that there wasn't enough data to analyze. Of the remaining 11, there were significant differences between the three types of students in four. The categories being humanities, social sciences, and "technical" i.e. science, engineering and maths. Social science majors were in the middle, except for autism.
See the graph I made above.
It's an interesting study. The autism result seems tenuous though because only 24 of 1077 students reported any autism in their immediate family. That's 3% of "technical" students and 1% of others, so not very many. The authors excluded schizophrenia and epilepsy from the analysis on the grounds of being too rare - and they had 18 each. Substance abuse and depression had over 150 each, so those differences are rather more solid.
The authors note that this fits with various previous studies and they discuss their findings in Baron-Cohen-esque terms:
It has been suggested that autism represents an extreme manifestation of a ‘‘systemizing’’ nature. Since ASDs have complex inheritance, shared genetic variation between close relatives might establish a continuous phenotype which in milder forms confers interest or benefits in understanding highly structured fields... Similarly, affective disorders may represent an extreme phenotype of emotional lability that, in milder forms, is commensurate with interest in the humanities.Hmm. OK, but does that really make sense? Sure, it fits with the popular image of the Geeky Scientist vs the Tortured Artist - but that's not science, that's stereotypes. Why would emotional lability make you favor the humanities, exactly?
Imagine if the stereotype was the Geeky Artist vs the Tortured Scientist (and there really have been plenty of both, over the years). Couldn't we rationalize that equally well? Picture the scene... -
"People with autistic traits are drawn to study the humanities because they wish to learn about humans and their emotions, something they find hard to do in day-to-day life... While emotionally volatile people like science and maths because they offer a calming sense of order and stability..."
Campbell BC, and Wang SS (2012). Familial Linkage between Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Intellectual Interests. PloS one, 7 (1) PMID: 22291951
37 comments:
Obviously there are a few issues with such studies:
1) the ability of individuals to report accrurately - it seems for example that they viewed propsopagnosia as a memory disorder - so they are not identifying at all accurately (at least for some conditions)
2) there seem to be strong oddities in the incidence rates e.g. schizophrenia
3) in the latter case, there may be a strong social desirability effect
4) indeed, in relation to desirability, such individuals may be more prone to endorse stereotypes (of autism-geek etc)
5) comorbidities were not apparently evaluated e.g. about a third of all people with autism have a comorbid disorder; similarly with other disorders esp things such as OCD (with sz etc)
Humans are good at rationalizing, so, yes, we could probably come up with some sort of explanation no matter what the result was... but stereotypes exist for a reason. And people really do tend to choose work/studies that "match" their personalities in some way, even when this is clearly not a good idea and they'd be better off going in the opposite direction. Helping people understand that if you are extremely sensitive and emotionally reactive you probably shouldn't work as a psychiatric nurse/therapist/social worker is an important part of my job (occupational psychologist working with people with cognitive and/or mental health challenges).
How right can you be neuroskeptic to remind us of polymaths.
Descartes might not be such a good philosopher after all-animals are not deprived of sensiblity etc...- but history has that when using anything from him was forbidden because of his philosophy some scientists in Holland complained because they needed his advances in math for their work...
Also ,parents who knows a little math and sciences can help their children understand math and feel good at it. This can make the difference when the child or teen-ager gets a bad teacher in math and gets bad grades.
As a very clever American aspie Rudy Simone wrote in her new book "Aspergirls" :
" While a good teacher is an incredible gift to a child's life and mind, a bad one is a force of destruction."
In the worst case,when at least one of the parent is not proficient enough in sciences nobody will see the bullying from that math teacher.
I have met many a highly gifted young person whom a silly (or narcissistic in the worst cases) math teacher had convinced that science was to be forgotten as a subject for that adolescent.
My two children had been constantly undervaluated from sciences by teachers in one of the French most prestigious highschool (lycée Henri IV in Paris who is not a good school but select good pupils).
Because I had had a good education I could see the ludicrous bad math teaching and bullying of my sons- not saints but not hopeless at math.
To Ecole Polytechnique - top French school only 400 French students taken every year plus 100 foreigners- for the youngest considered in writing as unable to reach the highschool diploma with math as a major of sort (he obtained it when I homeschooled him two years in advance on the legal age and with honors).
ENS Ulm for the eldest whom a math teacher at Lycée henri IV wanted to prevent to follow the scientific path when he was 13 years old.
NB: ENS Ulm -he enters two years in advance for the French school curriculum- takes only 20 "physicians" and 40"mathematicians" a year and had got the two last Field medals given to former students-although one is a professor in Chicago USA now.Since few people know about ENS Ulm I have better to write that my son Samuel Fulli-Lemaire -who was considered not worth of the science curriculum by a math teacher in one of the most elitist French high school at 13 years old - had been considered in a "To whom it may concern" by Dr Peter Davidson from the engineerring department of Cambridge (GB)University on the 24 04 06 : "(...) I was greatly impressed by his ability to assimilate new ideas, the speed with which he could apply this ideas and the ease with which he could effectively communicate his findings(...)I would say that he is comparable to the vey best of our own students, perhaps equivalent to the top 5% of Cambridge student. Certaintly if he decide to take a carreer in research he will do very well."
I have used those papers many times as a short and effective psychotherapy with low self-esteem pupils and students when this result from bad grades in math and science.
Plus, the cherry on the cake is that when my eldest son decided that he will study law after obtaining a master in physics from ENS Ulm and Paris VI, people tried to discourage him because he was suppose to have a scientific good mind and law was supposed to require different abilities lke writing and literay abilities: He obtained his undergrad in law in one year instead of three plus a special prize in a public law followed by a special prize in private law the year after (he is granted twice free registration for life to any courses in his law school since those two prices) and he doing very well with his PhD in international laws now.
My conclusion would be that parenting is important in bringing out sciences capabilities and interest for studying sciences.
But, a parents who loves sciences and spend time with the children might also push too hard into studying sciences...
Anonymous: Sure, I can believe that people with a personal or family history of mental health problems might want to study mental health - that makes sense. What I'm less clear on is why bipolar or alcoholic people would be attracted to history or philosophy ("humanities").
I mean according to these data they are, but it doesn't seem to make obvious sense.
From my moderation of a major Asperger forum for years i learned that at least AS persons have an equal interest/aptitude for the arts as science. They can be geeky as well as artsy.
This is a confirmation bias study imo. Anyroad, the baron-cohen psychobabble should be a dead giveaway already it's not very credible
Neuroskeptic 2 02 12 10:24,
You wrote: ///"What I'm less clear on is why bipolar or alcoholic people would be attracted to history or philosophy ("humanities")///
I fear some pro cannabis activists might insult me for that but:
it seems to me that if your parents are not up to the task of providing you with healthy home work habit and a regular and healthy lifestyle - because they are high in the evenings to relax or numb because of psychiatrists prescribing drugs or for any deep moral suffering of their own- you will often end up doing bad at school at subjects where the school curriculum is more demanding: sciences and math nowadays.
And you might still seem promizing and encouraged to study in humanities since the curriculum in western countries is little demanding in humanities at the highschool level
Idem for art: conceptual art thinking highschool teachers will give good grades and support without requiring their pupils to be able to draw and appreciate ancient art as Lucian Freud or David Ockney could for the former and can for the latter.
On the contrary, classical music profiency goes with active and nurturing parents as usual- and often classical music performer level goes with devoted parents travelling for the good teachers and so on. I remember a paper according to which all the laureate of the Chopin piano competition had had one parent as a "full time parent".Sometimes it is the father who is the musicaly devoted parent like for the late celloist Pablo Casals or late violonist Yehudy Menuhin.
This to tell that if the mother is in trouble the father can jump to help with children education.
Right on with the alternate possibility of the Geeky Artist and Tortured Scientist. Surprising that dedicated academics can make such silly assumptions. How do you think that even happens?
Well just from personal experience I think there is some truth in the geeky scientist one. My point was about the rationalizations / explanations for why that's the case. As for how it happens, it's only natural to seek explanations and that's what science is... we just need to be careful that they're good ones.
Judging from the prevalence numbers, I think this study is about substance abuse and anxiety/depression in the humanities. The autism spin is the least interesting part and is there really a significant difference between the three groups in the prevalence of familial autism? From 24 cases?
And while the text indicated 24 siblings with ASD, the texts sums them up as 16 + 4 and the table indicated 20 ASD siblings.
Great post. IMO there is a definite link between depression/drugs/alcoholism and arts&humanities, but I have no idea how you would actually go about measuring it.
Sam Wang here. I'm one of the authors on the study. I encourage readers to look at our original article, which is freely available at PLoS ONE.
In addition, some clarifications may help:
(1) We did not embark on the survey to prove a particular point about these disorders. The original purpose was to illustrate the relevance of neuroscience to students' lives. The familial linkage of major to heritable neuropsychiatric disorders emerged after the fact.
(2) There was no axe being ground by us. I do think that our results on autism are an independent verification of findings by Baron-Cohen in a sample not preselected for extreme ability.
(3) In regard to the question of how one might test these ideas further, the obvious followup would be a search for gene loci associated with specific intellectual interests. The heritability of autism, mood disorders, and substance abuse led to a search for susceptibility genes for those problems. One could imagine doing the same for intellectual interests.
If you want a further lay explanation, I encourage you to read this article: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S32/75/30O56/index.xml?section=newsreleases
Sam Wang, Princeton University
Autism consists to a certain extent of language difficulties, and ASD and language disorders tend to run in the same families. So couldn't it be that the kids with autism in the family aren't so much choosing science for any of its intrinsic merits as they are choosing *not* to study the humanities?
Sure, I can believe that people with a personal or family history of mental health problems might want to study mental health
Elkonen Goldberg comments in one of his texts, "The Wisdom Paradox"(?) that when he was involving in admitting students to post grad psychology in Moscow they had a rule that even if a potential student demonstrated all the right academic qualities, their file should be marked with a red tick to indicate possible psychological problems.
A friend of mine who worked in NY as a neuropsychologist, Frank Lefever, once told me that there was a graduate school in NY state that did the same thing.
A psychiatrist once remarked to me that his colleagues had met RD Laing, the anti-psychiatrist dude, and thought he had an underlying psychopathology.
The Geeky Scientist? The smarter you are the less likely you are to be constrained by social mores, the more independent you are likely to be in your thinking. The highly intelligent often demonstrate quirky traits. That is not indicative of psychopathology but rather of a person less constrained by so many cultural habits that many others regard as cultural imperatives.
BTW Ivana:
The other day I read how the psychoanalytic movement in France, under the "tutelage" of that bloody Lacan, still advocate that autism is caused by "mad mothering". Tis very sad .... . Apparently there is a controversial movie about this issue that has caused a ruckus in France. Reminds of how Bricmont and Sokal did the same with that famous text: Intellectual Impostures, or some like title.
Prof Sam Wang: Thanks for the comment. I agree that looking for genes would be a good next step.
I wonder if another approach wouldn't be to do your study in reverse, as it were: start out by finding people with a family history of autism (or whatever else) and see what they go on to study at college.
Prof Sam Wang,
The "Mars and Venus theory of autism" is a very popular easy to grasp theory.
Alternative theories do exists- at least for the scientists and people interested in medicine:
1) "Antidepressant use during pregnancy and childhood autism spectrum disorders”
Archives of General Psychiatry; 68(11):1104-1112. PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21727247
2) ) Pr Thomas Bourgeron (Paris): a well known researcher in the genetic of autism:One of his interests is clock genes in autism (Disturbed sleep-wake patterns in children with autism and many a family suffering sleepless nights suggesting an underlying impairment of the circadian timing system.)
http://symposium.cshlp.org/content/72/645
3)"The Intense World Syndrome" theory from the Swiss team -that so many aspies think as the “super empathy” theory of autism- :
Markram H, Rinaldi T, Markram K. Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland.
"The Intense World Syndrome -an alternative hypothesis for autism"
http://www.ei-resource.org/research/autism-research/the-intense-world-syndrome-%11-an-alternative-hypothesis-for-autism/
I cite the Swiss team :
"Autism is a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder with a polygenetic predisposition that seems to be triggered by multiple environmental factors during embryonic and/or early postnatal life. While significant advances have been made in identifying the neuronal structures and cells affected, a unifying theory that could explain the manifold autistic symptoms has still not emerged. Based on recent synaptic, cellular, molecular, microcircuit, and behavioral results obtained with the valproic acid (VPA) rat model of autism, we propose here a unifying hypothesis where the core pathology of the autistic brain is hyper-reactivity and hyper-plasticity of local neuronal circuits. Such excessive neuronal processing in circumscribed circuits is suggested to lead to hyper-perception, hyper-attention, and hyper-memory, which may lie at the heart of most autistic symptoms. In this view, the autistic spectrum are disorders of hyper-functionality, which turns debilitating, as opposed to disorders of hypo-functionality, as is often assumed."
4) Pr Mottron and Michelle Dawson from Canada who -rightly or wrongly -thinks badly of the Pr Baron-Cohen theory of systemizing and diagnostic methods.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1871515,00.html
I cite Pr Mottron:
///In an e-mail, Mottron wrote, "Baron-Cohen used a questionnaire which scores high in autistics. This
questionnaire also scores higher in [nonautistic] men than in women. This only demonstrates that the
autism questionnaire is a very weak and broad instrument, which is unable to differentiate autism and
male characteristics. It does not demonstrate that autism is linked to testosterone."
Beware also that:
The hubris of the genetic science in autism suffered greatly from technical recent advances. it is not possible for a scientist in 2012 to ignore that
1) to use a beautiful Neuroskeptic metaphor- it is not the father nor the mother but the third genetic parent(de novo mutations ) of autistic children that is responsible for the condition and only a few percent of the cases of autism share the mutation with the grand-parents gonads cells.
2) the mutations found in autism are an incredibly diverse lot.
NB:I greatly admire Pr Baron-Cohen, for his research in the role of testosterone -when so many psychologists and psychiatrists just ignore the role of hormones in the brain (luckily the gynecologists know better) - and for the wonderful video tools he produced to help autistic children and adults recognize face emotions. I chose to pay 500 pounds plus travel expenses to be trained in 2 days in using his diagnostic method of Asperger and I learnt a lot in two days.
John,
Dr Jacques Lacan died very rich and famous in 1981.
The sad problem in France is with the medical council and the strong psychoanalysis political lobbying.
prof Wang,
You did not verify an hypothesis since you wrote:
"The original purpose was to illustrate the relevance of neuroscience to students' lives. The familial linkage of major to heritable neuropsychiatric disorders emerged after the fact."
So it seems to a nobody psychiatrist that your accidental findings have to be replicated using it as the hypothesis of registered studies with publication of negative results before you could write:
(...)the obvious follow up would be a search for gene loci associated with specific intellectual interests.(...)"
And considering the bias of economis status of parents and parents'culture - for an example :In India a lot of bright non autistic girls are pushed to study computer science by parents and society - you will need to study much more than a limited student population.
So an alcoholic father means you inherited a "Shakesphere" gene loci. This study's crap.
Neuroskeptic, that is an interesting question. There are registries of autistic persons. The prediction would be that the odds-ratio of technical:nontechnical majors would be increased by about 3:1 relative to a non-autism group. There is some question of how to define a comparison group. Maybe registries for other neuropsychiatric disorders?
Your suggestion raises another possibility. A current issue in the autism research community is that autism is sometimes caused by de novo mutations, those that arise for the first time in the autistic person. Individuals with known de novo mutations would not be expected to have the ratio shown for other autistic persons.
At least one commenter assumes a "Shakespeare gene," but I think this is unwarranted. Intellectual ability and personality are independent parameters. I suggest that our work is more consistent with "Shakespeare-appreciation genes."
Finally, I would be interested in informed commentary on why our findings seem hard to believe. Intellectual ability and personality are known to be heritable, as are many neuropsychiatric disorders. Why would intellectual interests be an exception?
How do you expect people to appreciate neuroscience when this study demonstrates the sheer ignorence towards a breadth of literature on this issue like twin studies, concordant, adoption, DSM, psychiatric stuff, an academic take. Oh let's just conduct an opinion poll to see whether students appreciate neuroscience? ? but really, an insight into what kind of abusive backgrounds Princeton students come from, data available freely open access man. Either the authors should just not venture into an area they're not well rehearsed in, or they purposely did so for unethical reasons. Corrupt.
Just because you lead into a research finding with a stereotype doesn't mean that the stereotype isn't true. The highly statistically significant connection is established in the paper, and may even fail to identify other statistically significant correlations that would show up with a larger survey size. The stereotype in this case is being used as a heuristic to suggest a possible source for the demonstrated relationship after the fact.
You can't offer up a Geeky Artist hypothesis to explain your data if your data contradict that hypothesis.
I found it particularly notable that the link between substance abuse and humanities was stronger than the link between bipolar and the humanities for which there is far more of a history of efforts to find a connection in the literature.
The hypothesis which the paper advances, which is basically that certain diagnosed mental conditions with genetic causes express subclinically in relatives, has considerable practical importance to understand the etiology of people who are clinically diagnosed with those conditions and does so in a fairly convincing way that is subject to WEIRD sample issues, but the design is also pretty immune to a lot of design biases in more narrow studies.
I've removed three comments because they're off topic (but I've saved a backup if anyone wants them.) Please keep the discussion related to this paper, not autism in general or other issues.
For neuroscientists and psychologists and anyone able to read a scientific article a good read is:
"Deflating the Genomic Bubble"
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6019/861.short
"Also:Over-Hyping Genomic Research" with a video of Timothy caulfield telling that you have to hire good brains because good brains can work on anything. NB neuroskeptic :That very bright man disagree with Pr Wang and it is on topic with your post then:
http://cbt20.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/genomic-research-hype/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CanadianBiotechnologist20+%28Canadian+BioTechnologist2.0%29
wtf,
Andrews's comment is the proof of the soudness of your comment.
Thanks because the Gfrench psychoanalysis lobby expensive lawyers and media advocates are making the most of the shortcommings of neuroscience in autism.
Also, on the subject of that post since anybody with a critical educated in sciences mind can see a very biased oversimplification and misrepresentation of the neuroscience state of the art concerning what cause autisms plus biased conclusion of the piece of research work you post about:
"There is often a huge gap between neurobiological facts and firm conclusions stated by the media. Data misrepresentation in the conclusions and summaries of neuroscience articles might contribute to this gap."
said a very couragous French neuroscientist from Bordeaux in
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014618
NB: About the video I gave a link to; beware that no amount of coffee intake can make everyone as smart and able to write good books as Timothy Caulfield. And beware- no kidding- that four caffeine-induced disorders are recognized by the DSM IV produced by the American Psychiatric Association: caffeine intoxication, caffeine-induced sleep disorder, caffeine-induced anxiety disorder and caffeine-related disorder not otherwise specified (NOS).
More seriously, paraxanthine has been linked to miscarriage in pregnant mothersaccording to a New Engl Journ article :http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199911253412202It
Paraxanthine being the result from the demethylation of caffeine. NB: Genetics decide in part of your paraxanthine/caffeine blood ratio through the level of enzymes in the liver needed for caffeine metabolism.And here again the subject of that post since genetics counts there but the state of health your liver,drugs and pregnancy state play a big role in your demethylation of caffeine efficiency!
This is fascinating Neuroskeptic, although a 'pinch of salt' is always needed. Anecdodal / narrative evidence is always dubious, but I'm intrigued about how it relates to my story. Polyglot father killed himself at 27. I could read fluently at three. Physically dependent on alcohol, nicotine & caffiene by 17. Still picked up a good MA in Literature & Philosophy from a top university. Worked as a psych nurse for many years. Am now being sent for ECT. Instinct suggests to me this may hinge on individual interpretations of 'meaning'.
Anonymous 4 February 2012 18:03
Did you see the movie "A beautiful mind" about a Nobel Prize laureate in economy thanks to his math abilities or did you heard about the american Unibomber who had been a math academic?
In some French math department, you will find articulate and elegant algebrists claiming that the calculus guys are often crazy people.
PS:Good luck with your health. One of my old masters always said to us: I"f one day I am really very severely depressed and in need of treatment , please, do not put me on antidepressants give me ECT if you must."
What if you've got both autism *and* a mood disorder? Do you double major?
Heh, good question.
Neuroskeptic
I do not know but Lindsay question might be rhetoric (ie ironic in this case) since Professor Keith R Laws had already commented:
5) comorbidities were not apparently evaluated e.g. about a third of all people with autism have a comorbid disorder; similarly with other disorders esp things such as OCD (with sz etc)2 February 2012 07:49
Plus:
"Mater in jure semper certa est."
Do the authors of this study estimated how many students in their sample have received half of their chromosones from a man different of their father- be it from a spermdonor or a mother's secret lover?
Okay, here's my shot at falsifying the tortured scientist/geeky artist hypothesis:
1. People with autistic traits arent' drawn to the humanities to learn about human nature, because they need to understand more basic units of behavior before they can comprehend, say, Hamlet's indecision.
2. People with depression and anxiety don't find calm in numbers or classification systems, because they struggle to understand who they are, and with the fear that who they are is unacceptable. Numbers don't reflect personality. Classifications systems are reductionistic by necessity. Since no one ever fits into a typology perfectly, this suggests unacceptability.
Hi,
unfortunately I lack the knowledge to discuss whether or not these findings are accurate. Also I don't have a good theory about why humanities and mental illness/mood disorder go together.
What I just wanted to add, is that as a PhD student in a basically humanities field, I have been constantly wondering what the explanation is for all the crazy people I see around me. I realise of course that I am biased by the fact that I am in the field, and all the people over in the maths department could have mood disorders as well. But it seems to me that the levels of depression and even more serious mood disorders, especially as you move up the 'ranks' is far higher than in the population at large or within other faculties. My main point of comparison with something I have experienced outside my field is economics; the students in that discipline (who were mostly foreign) seemed like they were probably far less likely to have similar problems.
One final point, I would guess that the levels of disorders would NOT be represented in the academics themselves, since the normal patter seems to be that they people with severe problems are basically weeded out by the PhD process; they either never finish or once they do they get out. The humanities academics I would guess are far closer to a normal frequency of mood disorders than the postgrads.
Keith Laws has made some factual errors here. Some replies, for the record.
(1) It is incorrect that respondents viewed prosopagnosia as a memory disorder. They were not asked to make this classification. It is true that trouble recognizing faces was a survey item that encompasses both prosopagnosia, dementia, and other problems.
(2) and (3) The reported prevalence of schizophrenia in the US population 7.2 per 1000. It is hard to know what to expect from students' relatives since they include both parents and siblings, the latter of whom are younger. But n=18 is not aberrant in any way.
(4) Laws has no basis for this statement.
(5) This is untrue. Comorbidities were implicitly included in the survey, which took the form of a checklist. Also, it is not clear what point is being made here.
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