In Search for the Tourette Syndrome and Human Behavior Genes Dr. Comings tells the story of his years of involvement with Tourette syndrome, form both the level of treating thousands of patients with this common and complex disorder, to his clinical, genetic and molecular genetic research. He quickly realized this was more than just another tic disorder. His patients and their relatives had problems with a wide range of behaviors including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, conduct and oppositional defiant disorder, rages, mania, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, sexual, sleep, and other disorders. Because Tourette syndrome is genetic, this involvement with a spectrum of disorders had broad implications about the causes of behaviors that most mental health workers attributed to psychological problems, poor parenting, to learned behaviors. His genetic studies led him to eventually conclude that many human behavioral disorders were genetically interrelated was initially ridiculed. These attitudes began to change as others reported similar findings and as this concept gained support from molecular genetic studies of specific genes.

1996