New knowledge of impulse neurobiology

While not all impulsive behaviors have been linked to mental illness, a range of mental health disorders that often occur during adolescence, including depression and substance abuse, have been linked
to impulsivity.

A team of researchers led by academics at McGill University have developed a gene-based scoring that can help identify young children who are most likely to engage in impulsive behavior with high accuracy (higher than any impulse score currently used
).

The shift in perspective has led to new discoveries

The impulse risk score is derived by looking at the joint expression of a number of genes in the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, an area
of the brain that plays a role in decision-making and emotion regulation.

This requires a lot of hunting

This approach builds on previous research in mouse models, led by Cecilia Flores, one of the paper's senior authors and full professor of psychiatry, which confirms the importance of a specific gene, known as DCC, that acts as a "guiding cue" that determines when and precisely where
the brain's dopamine cells form connections in the prefrontal cortex and striatum.

But to create new impulse scores, we spent a lot of time narrowing down the genes most closely related to DCC
.

Flores added: "The findings underscore the importance of
data sharing and open science.

Corticolimbic DCC gene co-expression networks as predictors of impulsivity in children