IBS GRANADA scientists participate in the identification of the genes that determine personality
Science continues to unravel the mysteries of the human mind and its complex emotional mechanisms are one step closer to being discovered. An international team of scientists from the ibs.GRANADA belonging to the University of Granada and Washington in Saint Louis have managed to identify for the first time almost all of the genes that influence human personality, a study supported by two articles published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
This discovery will allow "to delve into the complicated brain and molecular processes that regulate human health and well-being", say the Granada scientists, who value the predictive capacity that this finding will have "at all levels": "Physical, mental and social "Because they consider that the human personality is" the real cause of most deaths and chronic diseases. "
Studies to date, conducted with twin brothers, could not explain the genetic "heritability" of their personalities; sequencing was only 1% consistent, although personality differences appeared to be 50% hereditary. The work was inconclusive and "ineffective in unraveling the complex genetics of the human personality."
Now, this scientific team has decided to measure both the temperament - the drives - and the character - self-regulation of behavior - of a population of more than 2.000 Finnish people between the ages of three and 45, whose data have been independently replicated with two other samples of 1.000 people from Germany and the same people in Korea, which implies the inclusion of the contrast of the cultural variable in the study, with no apparent differences.
More than 1.000 genes
Scientists have discovered more than a thousand genes that "directly influence temperament and character", comments the main author of this work, Igor Zwir, together with Coral del Val, Javier Arnedo, and Rocío Romero, and the researcher Alberto Mesa, all of them belonging to the «Mining for Modeling Lab» of the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence of the University of Granada and the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (iBS Granada), in collaboration with Dr. Robert Cloninger, author from Washington University in Saint Louis, as well as Finnish, German and Korean scientists.
Thus, researchers have verified that both the genes that cause basic emotional impulses, such as being fearful or impulsive, and those genes that regulate those emotions, such as being cooperative or having initiative, are almost all expressed in the brain. Scientists have found that genetic influences on personality are organized into "configurations of multiple traits that describe the whole person." That is, the natural building blocks of personality are "multifaceted profiles of the whole person, not individual traits."
A holistic view
Scientists claim a holistic view of mental health patients. Most of the previous research has focused on looking for the causes of individual traits such as extraversion or neuroticism, but it turns out that individual traits are not the natural components of personality. This new research has identified multiple molecular pathways that can produce the same individual traits and are distinguished by "multiple trait profiles with a more homogeneous genetic basis."
These scientific findings show that, even at the most elemental molecular genetic level, human health involves self-control processes that influence the way we perceive the world and interact with each other. "As a consequence, disease treatment and health promotion must focus on the person as a whole, and cannot be reduced to the consideration of separate diseases," said Coral del Val.