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Echoes of ancient DNA in living modern humans affect risk for neuropsychiatric disease and brain structure and function of networks subserving higher-order cognition

Neuropsychopharmacology (2022)Cite this article

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New, ground-breaking technological advances have enabled sequencing of ancient DNA from fossil remains, revealing unprecedented insights into our evolutionary biology and genetic influences on neuropsychiatric disease. These methods have demonstrated that ancestors of modern humans mixed with Neanderthals, our closest evolutionary cousins, approximately 40,000–75,000 years ago [1, 2], leaving residual echoes in our DNA. This inheritance is not just an idle feature of our genome, but is indeed functional in modern humans, for example, imparting changes in keratin to help skin and hair adapt to non-African climates and associating with risk for autoimmune conditions [2].

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Funding

MDG and KFB are supported by the NIMH Intramural Research Program (ZIAMH002652, ZIAMH002942 and ZIAMH002717).

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  1. Section on Integrative Neuroimaging, Clinical and Translational Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Michael D. Gregory & Karen F. Berman

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  1. Michael D. Gregory
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  2. Karen F. Berman
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MDG and KFB wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Michael D. Gregory or Karen F. Berman.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Gregory, M.D., Berman, K.F. Echoes of ancient DNA in living modern humans affect risk for neuropsychiatric disease and brain structure and function of networks subserving higher-order cognition. Neuropsychopharmacol. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-022-01396-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-022-01396-0

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