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Cerebral palsy is a nonprogressive motor disability caused by malformation or injury in the developing brain. Although most risk factors for cerebral palsy are thought to be environmental (related to in-utero or perinatal factors), previous studies have shown clustering in families, suggesting a genetic component. In this study of Norwegian families, researchers examined patterns of heritability of cerebral palsy to determine whether the degree of relatedness influences the risk for recurrence in another family member. The researchers used a large medical birth registry linked to a social insurance scheme to identify probands with cerebral palsy and their relatives.
The relative recurrence risk for cerebral palsy was increased 16-fold among …