Wiring the Brain

Genome-wide association studies ( GWAS ) have been highly successful at linking genetic variation in hundreds of genes to an ever-growing number of traits or diseases. The fact that the genes implicated fit with the known biology for many of these traits or disorders strongly suggests (effectively proves, really) that the findings from GWAS are “real” – they reflect some real biological involvement of those genes in those diseases. (For example, GWAS have implicated skeletal genes in height, immune genes in immune disorders, and neurodevelopmental genes in schizophrenia). But figuring out the nature of that involvement and the underlying biological mechanisms is much more challenging. In particular, it is not at all straightforward to understand how statistical measures derived at the level of populations relate to effects in individuals. Here, I explore some of the diverse mechanisms in individuals that may underlie GWAS signals. GWAS take an epidemiolo...

Source Why are some brain disorders so common? Schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy each affect about 1% of the world’s population, over their lifetimes. Why are the specific phenotypes associated with those conditions so frequent? More generally, why do particular phenotypes exist at all? What constrains or determines the types of phenotypes we observe, out of all the variations we could conceive of? Why does a system like the brain fail in particular ways when the genetic program is messed with? Here, I consider how the difference between “concrete” and “emergent” properties of the brain may provide an explanation, or at least a useful conceptual framework There is now compelling evidence that disorders like epilepsy, schizophrenia and autism can be caused by mutations in any of a very large number of different genes (sometimes singly, sometimes in combinations). This is fundamentally changing the way we think about these disorders. It is no longer tenable...