Richard Tremblay started his professional career as a clinician with juvenile delinquents and mentally ill offenders. He spent the rest of his career doing longitudinal and experimental studies to identify effective preventive interventions during the preschool and elementary school years. Results from these studies showed that early interventions with at risk children and their parents had very long-term impacts. Within these longitudinal studies, he also studied genetic and epigenetic effects on the development of violent behavior.

Tics are brief, sudden, non-rhythmic, repetitive movements. Tics can be motor or vocal. Further, both motor and vocal tics can be either simple or complex. Simple tics typically involve only one group of muscles and are brief and meaningless, whereas complex tics may last longer and appear more purposeful. Tic disorders usually begin in childhood and are classified according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) into four groups: (1) provisional tic disorder, (2) chronic motor or vocal tic disorder, (3) Tourette disorder (or Gilles de la Tourette syndrome), (4) tic disorder not otherwise specified. As tics can resemble almost any other movement disorder, phenotypic analysis alone is insufficient and patients must be questioned whether the execution is preceded by a premonitory sensation (urge to do, urge to move) and whether a temporary control of the movement can be achieved. Also, relief following execution of the tic is frequently reported. There are no biomarkers available for tics and diagnosis therefore remains strictly clinical.

Parkinson’s disease has been recently redefined clinically and its underlying molecular biology determined. Although it is a neurodegenerative disease, loss of neurons is largely focal rather than large scale; symptoms are caused more by neurochemical deficits and dysfunctional cells than cell loss. The two main pathologic features are loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra of the midbrain and the more widespread aggregation of a-synuclein in certain vulnerable neurons in the brain. Several triggers can cause the molecular cascade that kills dopamine neurons and makes the a-synuclein protein fibrilize and aggregate initially in brainstem neurons, including genetic variants and post-translational modification of the protein. The disease is slowly progressive with the propagation of aggregates from vulnerable synapses to the entire neuron, then from one neuron to other neurons and glial cells. Different propagation mechanisms have been identified for these different brain cells that work in concert to sustain the slow disease process. Current therapeutic delivery of dopamine or deep brain stimulation temporarily relieve the symptoms with disease-modifying treatments now able to be trialled due to identifying the underlying molecular biology.

"Ataxia" refers to both the neurologic syndrome of motor coordination and to a large and diverse group of diseases that have motor coordination impairment as their main clinical feature. The brain structure most consistently affected is the cerebellum. Although many different brain diseases may manifest with ataxia, the vast majority of slowly progressive ataxias are genetic diseases. Indeed, genetic molecular analysis has become the cornerstone of both diagnosis and classification of this complex group of conditions. In this overview, the basics of the clinical features and the classification of these diseases, as well as common conditions, and recently defined novel forms of ataxia are discussed.

The clinical and pathologic hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease (PD) are motor parkinsonism due to underlying progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta accompanied by an accumulation of intracytoplasmic protein inclusions known as Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites. The diagnostic criteria/guidelines based on the UK Parkinson’s Disease Society Brain Bank clinical diagnostic criteria have guided clinicians and researchers in the diagnosis of PD for many decades. This chapter discusses whether this description represents our current understanding of PD, and why it is time to integrate new research findings and accommodate our definition and diagnostic criteria of PD, such as Parkinson-associated non-motor symptoms, genetics, biomarkers, imaging findings, or heterogeneity of phenotypes and underlying molecular mechanisms. In 2015, the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society published clinical diagnostic criteria for Parkinson’s disease, which were designed specifically for use in research but also as a general guide to clinical diagnosis of PD. These criteria and some of their limitations are also discussed.

This chapter summarizes the detals of the preceding eight chapters, emphasizing the key role of Caucasus in human (hominin) settlement of Western Eurasia and the connection of the Caucasus to (prehistoric) world events. It also offers some final thoughts about the nature of demographic transitions in prehistory.

This chapter reviews anthropological genetic inquiries into the population dynamics in the Caucasus. Genetic and genomic methods are introduced along with the problems of identifying specific regions of origins for genetic populations. Also discussed are the general genetic characteristics of the Caucasus and neigboring areas of the Near East and steppe; gene-language-geography studies; genetic affinities between Maikop kurgan burials and contemporary South Caucasus peoples; the phylogeography of maternal and paternal lineages in the Caucasus and western Asia; revelations about Caucasus prehistory derived from ancient genomics; the putative connection between the spread of farming, Indo-European languages, and Y-chromosome lineages; the timing of the split between Caucasus and European hunter-gatherer groups; and questions as to the role of Caucasus hunter-gatherers in the peopling of continental Europe.

This chapter presents solicited feedback from established Caucasus scholars on their ideas for further research priorities.

This chapter explores the approach of the CJEU and the ECtHR to the highly contentious topic of surrogacy in order to unravel the understanding of motherhood endorsed by these two European courts. It shows that legal motherhood continues to be tied to gestation and birth, thus placing intended mothers in a precarious legal position, especially compared to intended (genetic) fathers. As part of its effort to explain this gender imbalance, the chapter uses the experience of surrogacy as a window for a broader discussion on the gender of legal fictions governing the attribution of parenthood. Whilst the rule mater semper certa est remains one of the most immutable facts of European family laws, legal systems have generally demonstrated a certain flexibility and attention to context in determining legal fatherhood, at times departing from the marital presumption. The chapter argues that this differential attitude reflects a long-standing socio-legal resistance to breaking the continuum gestation-motherhood-caregiving, and aligns with the gendered and higher expectations that legal systems place on mothers compared to fathers.

The paper will be looking at two Second World War texts, Olaf Stapledon’s 1944 science fiction fantasy Sirius, about the genetic modification of a sheepdog so that it becomes a superdog capable of speech and spiritual and erotic relationships; and Charles Williams’ 1945 theological fantasy All Hallow’s Eve. The novels are novels of ideas, testing theories of creative evolution and species distinctions with Stapledon, and damnation and control with Williams: both explore the death drive within the psyche in war culture, and posit the very different ways infection by Fascist politics have shaped those explorations.

Newspapers expanded around 1900 to reach a wider readership, often reporting sensationalized stories about science. Attacks on the Darwinian theory of natural selection intensified, leading to claims that the theory was on its deathbed. Lamarckism remained active along with the theory of directed variation (orthogenesis), both presented as less materialistic than Darwinism. New alternatives appeared, including the ‘mutation theory’ (evolution by jumps) and genetics, which was at first presented as a threat to Darwinism rather than a supporting factor. In the 1920s a new surge of creationism in the United States intensified the attack on Darwinian materialism, culminating in the widely reported trial of J. T. Scopes. The same critiques appeared in a less muted form in Britain. The Darwinian ‘struggle for existence’ remained a source of anxiety for those who feared a potential threat to moral values and social stability.

In the 1920s and 1930s the Darwinian selection theory was linked to genetics, providing it with a secure foundation, although wider dissemination of this initiative was limited until the 1940s. Historians note that the ‘evolutionary synthesis’ was a rhetorical device to create an impression of unity, leaving the various disciplines involved still functioning independently. Radio now became an important means of disseminating science news, as in the 1959 celebrations of the centenary of the Origin of Species. The new version of Darwinism eroded the plausibility of eugenics and race theory, although these ideologies remained active in less visible forms. Popular accounts of evolutionism now stressed its open-endedness and played down the old assumption that humanity must be the inevitable outcome of progress. Julian Huxley tried to give the synthesis a moral dimension by linking it to his philosophy of humanism, but creationists saw the new initiative in science as a continuation of Darwinian materialism and renewed their attacks.

Suppose you are running a company that provides proofreading services to publishers. You employ people who sit in front of screens, correcting written text. Spelling errors are the most frequent problem, so you are motivated to hire proofreaders who are excellent spellers. Therefore, you decide to give your job applicants a spelling test. It isn’t hard: throw together 25 words, and score everyone on a scale of 0–25. You are now a social scientist, a specialist called a psychometrician, measuring “spelling ability.”

The reader should be officially informed that in this chapter I take leave of the widely accepted consensus about nature–nurture. This is not a textbook, and everything that I have said up to now has been very much my own take on things, but for the most part I have not strayed far from what most scientists would say about the intellectual history of nature and nurture. Not everyone perhaps, but most people agree that Galton was a racist, eugenics a moral and scientific failure, heritability of behavioral differences nearly universal, heritability a less than useful explanatory concept, twin studies an interesting but ultimately limited research paradigm, and linkage and candidate gene analysis of human behavior decisive failures.

Has it always been the case that living people must struggle with the moral failings of their dead ancestors, or is that a special burden that has been placed on the shoulders of citizens and scientists living in contemporary Europe and North America? Recently, the culture feels as though it is being torn apart by this question. I was taught in grade school that the United States is the greatest country in the world, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where anyone could be a millionaire or president if they put in the effort. It is hardly radical to recognize that this is less than true today and isn’t even close to true historically, especially if one is not white, Christian, and male.