Neandertal introgression partitions the genetic landscape of neuropsychiatric disorders and associated behavioral phenotypes.

ABSTRACT: Despite advances in identifying the genetic basis of psychiatric and neurological disorders, fundamental questions about their evolutionary origins remain elusive. Here, introgressed variants from archaic humans such as Neandertals can serve as an intriguing research paradigm. We compared the number of associations for Neandertal variants to the number of associations of frequency-matched non-archaic variants with regard to human CNS disorders (neurological and psychiatric), nervous system drug prescriptions (as a proxy for disease), and related, non-disease phenotypes in the UK biobank (UKBB). While no enrichment for Neandertal genetic variants were observed in the UKBB for psychiatric or neurological disease categories, we found significant associations with certain behavioral phenotypes

SUBMITTER: Dannemann M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9534885 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature