Duke University has identified two gene "mutations" associated with hair-pulling, a behaviour that is known as "trichotillomania", a rather ridiculous and melodramatic psychiatric term.

http://www.dukemednews.duke.edu/news/art...hp?id=9887

This is relevant to AS and autism because this habit is often associated with autism, even though this article does not mention this association. Perhaps the genes identified are also "autism genes"?

It's an interesting question as to why the association between autism and hair-pulling was consicuously not mentioned in this article. I think the authors deliberately left autism out of the article so as not to alarm people. Autism is a word that seems to provoke hysteria and irrational concern.

These researchers appear to be trying to convince us that it is a bad thing that hair-pulling "often goes undiagnosed and untreated", but when you read the article you find out that "Currently, there is no specific treatment for trichotillomania..."

So what's the point of diagnosing, then? I think these thoughtless boffins just want to identify prosepctive subjects who they can study, with no thought at all for the implications of stigmatizing people, who only have a harmless and inconsequential habit, with a psychiatric label. According to the article up to 5% of the population are (mostly untreated and undiagnosed) hair pullers, but the article makes Trich sound like some major public health menace. To call hair-pulling a mental illness, as this article does, is to grossly trivialize REAL mental illnesses that cause real suffering and many serious problems in the community a large, like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Alzheimers and clinical depression.

I think the only practical innovations that may result from this research will be advances in identifying the genes for conditions that go along with trich, such as autism and Tourette's, and possibly also a prenatal test specifically for trichotillomania, that may one day be part of a barrage of many different genetic screening tests that doctors will expect all pregnant women to take during early preganacy. Lili Marlene is a hair-puller from way back. No more Lili Marlenes. Bugger.