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Nature sub-journal: Genetic 'hot spots' that accelerate/slow down brain aging

 Last Update: 2022-04-16
 Source: Internet
 Author: User

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A team led by the University of Southern California has identified 15 "hot spots" in the genome that either accelerate or slow brain aging

The study appears online today in Nature Neuroscience

"The biggest change here is finding where on the chromosomes speed up or slow down brain aging in the world's population

ENIGMA, a working group based at the University of Southern California, is exploring vast amounts of brain data and has published some of the largest studies yet on schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, Parkinson's, and even AIDS Neuroimaging studies of viral infections

To discover these hot spots, or genomic loci, more than 200 ENIGMA member scientists from around the world searched for people whose brains had been scanned twice by MRI

1 million markers screened

After calculating the rate of brain tissue changes in 15,000 people of different ages, the researchers screened 1 million markers across their genomes to detect 15 genomic loci specific, the physical location of a gene or other DNA sequences - they accelerate changes in brain tissue

Those loci include some well-known Alzheimer's risk genes, such as APOE, as well as some new ones, Thompson said

"Some of these genetic variants affect the growth rate of brain substructures in childhood, while others affect the rate of brain tissue loss in old age," said co-author Neda Jahanshad, associate professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC

Thompson added: "You can see that APOE (the well-known Alzheimer's gene) adversely affects several structures in the brain - the hippocampus and the amygdala - which also makes sense because they are The area of the brain most vulnerable to Alzheimer's appears to accelerate tissue loss there in particular

ENIGMA also runs a number of international projects studying brain disorders in children - from Tourette's syndrome to autism to epilepsy

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