Thursday, May 04, 2006

Cognition and the sex chromosomes: studies in Turner syndrome   posted by Razib @ 5/04/2006 01:29:00 AM
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Cognition and the sex chromosomes: studies in Turner syndrome:

Turner syndrome (TS) is a human genetic disorder involving females who lack all or part of one X chromosome...The cognitive phenotype generally includes normal verbal function with relatively impaired visual-spatial ability, attention, working memory, and spatially dependent executive function....Careful clinical and molecular characterization of adult subjects missing part of Xp links the TS phenotype of impaired visual spatial/perceptual ability to specific distal Xp chromosome regions. We demonstrate that small, nonmosaic deletion of the distal short arm of the X chromosome in adult women is associated with the same hallmark cognitive profile seen in adult women with TS. Future studies will elucidate the cognitive deficits and the underlying etiology.