Different brain alterations may have the same genetic basis

2018/06/21 Etxebeste Aduriz, Egoitz - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika
• Osasuna

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An international research group has analyzed the genetic correlation of various brain alterations by comparing the genomes of more than one million people. It has been concluded that many psychiatric alterations present the same genetic variations, while neurological alterations are more different from each other and with respect to psychiatric alterations in terms of genetic base. These results have been published in the journal Science.

We analyzed 25 brain, neurological and psychiatric disorders, as well as epilepsy, migraine and ischemic stroke. The genomes of 265,218 patients were compared with 784,643 healthy people.

In neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis, they have hardly found correlation. In psychiatric disorders, however, many correlations have been observed. The highlight has been mental anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, while they have discovered that schizophrenia is related to most psychiatric disorders studied. Autism and Tourette syndrome are exceptions because they are not related to other psychiatric disorders. And the only non-psychiatric alteration related to psychiatric disorders has been migraine. In fact, they have seen that migraine may be related to Tourette syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity confusion, and severe depression disorder.