A Link Between Blood Components and Brain Disorders - Neuroscience News

A Mater Research study has identified a previously unknown genetic link between platelets and Parkinson’s Disease, with findings published in Cell Genomics.

Lead author Dr. Yang said the research came about following reports of associations between a range of different blood measures and risk of stroke, multiple sclerosis and depression.

“These results sparked interest in developing blood-based biomarkers for common brain disorders, but it was unclear whether there was a genetic basis to these relationships,” Dr. Yang said.

“Our study identified a broad landscape of genetic overlap between blood cell measures and 11 neurological and psychiatric disorders.” Image is in the public domain“Our study identified a broad landscape of genetic overlap between blood cell measures and 11 neurological and psychiatric disorders.”

Senior author A/Prof Gratten said the findings “provide a foundation for future work to improve prevention and prognosis of common neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders.”

Here, we report genetic correlations and Mendelian randomization analyses between 11 NPDs and 29 BCTs, using genome-wide association study summary statistics.