Brain diseases such as autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and epilepsy have complex genetic origins. So far, scientists have identified both common and rare genetic variations associated with these disorders. However, the shared biological processes influenced by these two types of variations remained poorly understood.<\/p>\n
A new approach has clarified these mechanisms by analyzing gene expression in 933 post-mortem brain samples. Researchers found that, despite often distinct sets of risk genes between studies on common and rare variations, the genes that are co-expressed with these risk genes significantly overlap. These convergent genes show strong involvement in the heritability of diseases, for both common and rare variations.<\/p>\n
The study also reveals that these genes share important characteristics: they are more sensitive to mutations and more often targeted by existing drugs. This suggests they could play a key role in the development of new therapies. Additionally, they are involved in essential biological processes, such as communication between neurons or the immune response, which are disrupted in several psychiatric disorders.<\/p>\n
Finally, this research highlights specific types of brain cells, such as astrocytes and glutamatergic neurons, which appear to be particularly affected. These findings pave the way for a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying brain diseases and could help identify new therapeutic targets.<\/p>\n
DOI:<\/strong> https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41380-026-03571-x<\/a><\/p>\n Title:<\/strong> Convergent coexpression reveals shared biological mechanisms underlying common and rare variant risk in six neuropsychiatric disorders<\/p>\n Journal:<\/strong> Molecular Psychiatry<\/p>\n Publisher:<\/strong> Springer Science and Business Media LLC<\/p>\n Authors:<\/strong> Hanna Abe; Calwing Liao; Lide Han; Theodore Morley; Michael E. Talkowski; Kristen J. Brennand; Douglas M. Ruderfer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do Psychiatric Disorders Share Common Biological Mechanisms? Brain diseases such as autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and epilepsy have complex genetic origins. So far, scientists have identified both common and rare genetic variations associated with these disorders. However, the shared biological processes influenced by these two types of variations remained poorly understood. A new approach has… Continue reading Do Psychiatric Disorders Share Common Biological Mechanisms?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychiatryfoundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}