What does ‘dominant’ ataxia mean

[wobblybee]

scasource.net/2020/05/01/sn...

[timk Volunteer]

As I understand it, dominant (and recessive) refer to the type of genetic inheritance; you may recognise the terms dominant genes and recessive genes. So I have a SCA which I inherited from my father who had it. I had a 50-50 chance of inheriting it and I drew the short straw, you could say. Most of the SCAs are genetic and are dominant, I believe, so you have a 50-50 chance of inheriting it. When it comes to other 'recessive' genes, you have a 1 in 4 chance of inheriting the ataxia gene. In these cases, I think, both parents have to be carriers of the faulty gene and you have a 1 in 4 chance of inheriting the faulty gene, in this case the ataxia gene. Friedreich's ataxia is the most common example of a recessive ataxia. I am not a geneticist, so this is at the edges of my lay knowledge. If you look at the leaflet put out by Ataxia UK, 'Ataxia what's that?', there is a section on genetics that should explain what I have tried to explain. Here is a link that should take you to the leaflet: ataxia.org.uk/Handlers/Down...