I think I've got it(I twist the door knob 5-6 times to check if it's locked and do the same to my car door) and I think My Dad may have had it(He would really fuss us out for one rag sitting on a table for instance).

[edit on 13-9-2007 by BigDaveJr]

OCD is hereditary but it can skip generations. My mom and grandfather have it but I don't. I have a friend that has it also and his mom.

I have schizophrenia which is supose to be hereditary but no one in my family has it other then me and I have a very large family.

Psychiatric disorders are funny like that thier unpredictable as to who's gonna get them.

I belive it all comes down to the genes you inherit and suseptablilty. I also belive envoirmental influences play a part as to how disorders are triggerd.

Example: My mom and dad both have straight hair, my grandfather on my moms side is the only one of my grand parents that has curly hair. So either I get it from him or the mailman is my dad.

I learned in school that genes skip generations but not always depending on the prevelance of the genes from both sides of the family.

Interesting topic.

Originally posted by wantsome
OCD is hereditary but it can skip generations. My mom and grandfather have it but I don't. I have a friend that has it also and his mom.

I have schizophrenia which is supose to be hereditary but no one in my family has it other then me and I have a very large family.

[...]

I belive it all comes down to the genes you inherit and suseptablilty. I also belive envoirmental influences play a part as to how disorders are triggerd.

[...]

I learned in school that genes skip generations but not always depending on the prevelance of the genes from both sides of the family.

Schizophrenia is not necessarily hereditary, there are a lot of theories as to what causes it. The prevailing theories cite it as a disease of the brain itself, including the popular dopamine hypothesis. I recall a study finding that flu strains in pregnant women made the child more likely to develop schizophrenia later. The recognised heredity of schizophrenia is quite low as far as I'm aware, but genetic susceptibility is only usually half the story anyway. As you mentioned, environmental factors are usually needed to nurture or trigger - and usually play the biggest role in psychiatric disorders.

With this in mind, the fact that OCD runs in families is easier to understand. Though there is no gene that 'causes' the disorder, the gene SLC1A1, which regulates the flow of glutamate in and out of brain cells, has recently been marked as a bit of a candidate in facilitating OCD's development.

However, susceptibility alone isn't an explanation, and requires nurture. It stands to reason that children with obsessive compulsive parents will learn hallmark OCD behaviours and personality traits. For something behavioural like OCD, this would most likely be the case regardless of any genetic predisposition.

And because it is a characteristically behavioural problem, it can be managed and you can 'retrain' the disorder, probably through something like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Like MajorMalfunction said, online forums aren't really the best resource for diagnostic criterion. Sickos like me would have you believe all kinds of things.

[edit on 14-9-2007 by Dumbfirefly]

Originally posted by Dumbfirefly
Interesting topic.

Originally posted by wantsome
OCD is hereditary but it can skip generations. My mom and grandfather have it but I don't. I have a friend that has it also and his mom.

I have schizophrenia which is supose to be hereditary but no one in my family has it other then me and I have a very large family.

[...]

I belive it all comes down to the genes you inherit and suseptablilty. I also belive envoirmental influences play a part as to how disorders are triggerd.

[...]

I learned in school that genes skip generations but not always depending on the prevelance of the genes from both sides of the family.

Schizophrenia is not necessarily hereditary, there are a lot of theories as to what causes it. The prevailing theories cite it as a disease of the brain itself, including the popular dopamine hypothesis. I recall a study finding that flu strains in pregnant women made the child more likely to develop schizophrenia later. The recognised heredity of schizophrenia is quite low as far as I'm aware, but genetic susceptibility is only usually half the story anyway. As you mentioned, environmental factors are usually needed to nurture or trigger - and usually play the biggest role in psychiatric disorders.

With this in mind, the fact that OCD runs in families is easier to understand. Though there is no gene that 'causes' the disorder, the gene SLC1A1, which regulates the flow of glutamate in and out of brain cells, has recently been marked as a bit of a candidate in facilitating OCD's development.

However, susceptibility alone isn't an explanation, and requires nurture. It stands to reason that children with obsessive compulsive parents will learn hallmark OCD behaviours and personality traits. For something behavioural like OCD, this would most likely be the case regardless of any genetic predisposition.

And because it is a characteristically behavioural problem, it can be managed and you can 'retrain' the disorder, probably through something like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Like MajorMalfunction said, online forums aren't really the best resource for diagnostic criterion. Sickos like me would have you believe all kinds of things.

[edit on 14-9-2007 by Dumbfirefly]

I agree with most of what you said but as to schozophrenia thier are a ton of hypothosis's out there. I've read arcticles that it's caused from , Lead poisening, to a virus founnd in cat fecies, to prenatal flue, you name it thiers a alot ideas floating around.

The dopamine hypothosis is highly contravertial. I know most typical and atypical antipychotic medications block dopamine but thier is a study that was just released showing that glutamate plays more of a role then previously thought. I read an article a few weeks ago that their is two medications in the works that don't block dopamine instead they alter the role that glutamate plays. I think Eli Lilly is developing them and thier in the testing phase. I also read that in trials they showed a 33% sucsess rate which was about the norm when compaired to most antipychotics.

Heres a quick read on geneology and schiz I thought you might find interesting.

There is no doubt a strong genetic component to schizophrenia - those who have immediate relatives with a history of this or other psychiatric diseases (for example, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, etc) have a significantly increased risk for developing schizophrenia over that of the general population. However, twin studies have shown that simple genetic transmission is far from the whole story - if one identical twin has schizophrenia, the risk for the other twin (who has the exact same genes as his/her sibling) is only about 50%. This indicates a complexity of genetics and environment that is not yet well understood, rather than a case of single or multiple gene presence in the body automatically confer

You're right, as I acknowledged there are hell of a lot of theories flying around, though I had never even heard of some of the ones you mentioned. The Dopamine Hypothesis was still the most popular idea when I stopped my school pyschology study two years ago. Since then dopamine inhibiting drugs have been blocking fewer receptors and now D2 seems to be the favourite.

From what I had read about the role of glutamate, the blocking of glutamate receptors (with Ket or PCP) shows a markedly higher sensitivity to dopamine, due to the resultant rise in D2 receptors in the brain - which remains the popular target for antipsychotics like clozapine and quetiapine. Can you give me some references about the new glutamate only treatments? Sounds like I'm behind on something interesting.

That said, perhaps there's a reason it's been slow to reach some ears. There's been nasty talk flying around about the motivations of pharmaceutical companies in their promotion of dopamine inhibitors as cures. It comes maybe as a pleasant surprise then that Eli Lilly are doing something seemingly virtuous for a change after the Zyprexia debacle .

While dopamine inhibitors have revolutionised the treatment of psychosis, I think it's good that research is being done (even if they've been forced, like Eli Lilly) into other contributing neurotransmitters to fine tune treatment rather than settling on the easy fix.


apologies for the multiple edits, it's late and my typing is abysmal
[edit on 14-9-2007 by Dumbfirefly]

[edit on 14-9-2007 by Dumbfirefly]

[edit on 14-9-2007 by Dumbfirefly]

I do alot of things like that do, but it's not really bad. Making sure things are really off or still where I put them, things like that.

No one else in my family (that I know of) does it to though.