Tourette’s syndrome (SGT) like many neurological diseases has a genetic component. Although not inherited, there is a genetic predisposition that increases the risk of developing the disease for a patient’s relatives.
Causes of Tourette’s syndrome
Tourette’s syndrome (SGT) like many neurological diseases has a genetic component. Although not inherited, there is a genetic predisposition that increases the risk of developing the disease for a patient’s relatives.
50% of monozygous twins and about 8% of first-degree relatives showed agreement for this syndrome. However, the likely numerous interacting disease susceptibility genes have not yet been identified, making molecular diagnosis impossible at this time.
Environmental factors, including immune responses and exposure to toxic factors during development in utero and after birth, are also suspected. It is called a multifactorial syndrome.
At Paris Brain Institute
Andreas HARTMANN, Yulia WORBE and Christel DEPIENNE, (Mov’It team: Movement, Investigations, Therapeutics. Experimental pathophysiology and Therapeutics" are members of the International Consortium on the Genetics of Tourette Syndrome.
An anonymous genome screening, i.e. a study of all chromosomes for disease susceptibility genes carried out by consortia in 2019 and involving 4819 patients and 9488 controls, has made it possible to identify many regions of the genome involved in the appearance of Tourette’s syndrome and in particular in the appearance of tics.
Pr. Yulia Worbe, member of the Mov’It: Movement, Investigations, Therapeutics team. Experimental pathophysiology and Therapeutics", led by Prof. Vidailhet and Prof. Lehéricy, is also a member of the International Consortium on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in Tourette's Gilles Syndrome. This consortium, which brings together researchers from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, aims to identify diagnostic and evolutionary neurophysiological markers of this syndrome.
