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Some People Just Never Learn

Posted by Zonk on from the i-could-use-a-dose-of-anti-a1 dept.

Iddo Genuth writes "German scientists recently showed what many of us suspected but could not prove — some people just don't learn. The German researchers have found a genetic factor that affects our ability to learn from our errors. The scientists demonstrated that men carrying the A1 mutation are less successful at learning to avoid mistakes than men who do not carry this genetic mutation. This finding has the potential to improve our understanding of the causes of addictive and compulsive behaviors."

4 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Dupe? by debianlinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apparently the editors have this genetic deficiency as well: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/08/1414258

  2. Re:If A1 is still found today... by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not sure. If it doesn't disadvantage people (i.e. lead to higher chance of death) then it's quite possible that A1 would just stick around (genes don't just disappear for no reason).

  3. Re:What does this have to do with OCD? by Sique · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you not just read TFA, but actually followed the links you would have been at Science, where the abstract clearly states:

    Dopamine D2 receptor reduction seems to decrease sensitivity to negative action consequences, which may explain an increased risk of developing addictive behaviors in A1-allele carriers. Maybe this time the journalist was better at actually reading and understanding the article?
    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  4. Re:If A1 is still found today... by Some_Llama · · Score: 3, Informative

    "..doesn't it mean it has some evolutionary advantages?"

    Not necessarily, evolutionarily wise, a trait will not be propagated "just" because it is advantageous (although that does help), better to look at it as it will only be extinguished if it is disadvantageous (puts the member with those traits behind others in the group competitively).

    But in our current society, where we prop up traits that would (in a more aggressive society (e.g. animal kingdom) be naturally extinguished (like autism, retardation, siamese twins, etc) it's hard to say what if any trait is beneficial or harmful. But this is what we choose to do (making no note here if it is morally right or wrong sto do so).

    the appendix comes to mind of something which on the surface has no identifiable reason for being, but has not been "flushed" form the gene pool because it doesn't "harm" the gene pool (or more acurrately we "fix" the people it does harm).

    ()()()()()() sorry had to get those out of my system :)