SIGNIFICANCE OF MORPHOGENETIC INFORMATIVE VARIANTS IN GENETIC EVALUATION OF MENTAL RETARDATION

We evaluated the presence or absence of informative morphogenetic variants in cases with mental retardation compared with mentally healthy subjects. Cases diagnosed with mental retardation were matched by age and sex with control subjects and examined for the presence of informative morphogenetic variants. The aim of the study was to investigate their prevalence and mean number in these subjects. Mentally healthy individuals showed a lower mean score than those mentally retarded. A higher mean number was also noticed in cases with idiopathic and in those with severe mental retardation. The increased number of anomalies in these cases suggests that such congenital markers could indicate a prenatal onset of the mental deficit.