Coming to terms with heritability

The complex mechanisms of heredity are little appreciated by non-specialists, in some measure, because of misunderstandings that are perpetuated when words used for technical terms have other, more widely understood, folk meanings. When a word has both technical and folk meanings, it is the responsibility of the specialist to avoid promoting confusion by either using extremely cautious and precise language when using the term or, in cases when confusion is inevitable, abandoning the term in favor of one without a widely understood folk meaning. The study of heredity is beset by such confusion, and the term heritability appears to be at the heart of some of the confusion. In this article, I discuss both the technical and folk meanings of heritability and examine the bridge between them. By continuing to use the term heritability, we risk promulgating serious misunderstanding about the workings of heredity, therefore I suggest selectability as an alternative term to avoid such pitfalls.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42804/1/10709_2005_Article_BF02259512.pd

Childhood aggression and the co-occurrence of behavioural and emotional problems

Childhood aggression and its resulting consequences inflict a huge burden on affected children, their relatives, teachers, peers and society as a whole. Aggression during childhood rarely occurs in isolation and is correlated with other symptoms of childhood psychopathology. In this paper, we aim to describe and improve the understanding of the co-occurrence of aggression with other forms of childhood psychop

Towards an understanding of neuroscience for science educators

Advances in neuroscience have brought new insights to the development of cognitive functions. These data are of considerable interest to educators concerned with how students learn. This review documents some of the recent findings in neuroscience, which is richer in describing cognitive functions than affective aspects of learning. A brief overview is presented here of the techniques used to generate data from imaging and how these findings have the possibility to inform educators. There are implications for considering the impact of neuroscience at all levels of education – from the classroom teacher and practitioner to policy. This relatively new cross-disciplinary area of research implies a need for educators and scientists to engage with each other. What questions are emerging through such dialogues between educators and scientists are likely to shed light on, for example, reward, motivation, working memory, learning difficulties, bilingualism and child development. The sciences of learning are entering a new paradigm

Psychopathic traits in young children

Callous and unemotional (CU) traits provide researchers and clinicians with an additional dimension when assessing children displaying early-onset conduct problems. Evidence from genetic, brain and cognitive studies to date suggests that antisocial children with psychopathic personality traits are genetically more vulnerable to antisocial behaviour than their antisocial peers. Neuroimaging studies in adults with psychopathy have demonstrated amygdala hyporeactivity to emotional stimuli, while there is some suggestion that adults with antisocial behaviour but no psychopathy may show the opposite pattern. Child neuroimaging data in this area are still thin on the ground; however, behavioural data support the hypothesis that antisocial children with callous-unemotional traits may have some amygdala abnormality. When compared with each other, antisocial children with callous-unemotional traits demonstrate hyposensitivity to others’ distress, while other antisocial children appear hypersensitive to anger directed towards them. New research combining different levels of analyses will no doubt provide further insight about the distinct developmental patterns associated with psychopathy, and help to inform methods of intervention, allowing treatment of antisocial behaviour to be targeted according to whether elevated levels of CU traits are presen