‘Cold climate’ gene linked to schizophrenia: study
Researchers find gene that helped early Europeans survive cooler climate also left them vulnerable to schizophrenia
When humans walked out of Africa about 60,000 years ago and slowly made their way to Europe, their genes underwent an important mutation.
The change allowed their body to survive the cold climate, but that came at a steep price that left many Europeans today prone to developing a serious mental illness, according to a joint study by Chinese and American scientists.
The international research team led by Professor Li Ming of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Kunming Institute of Zoology found that a gene associated with schizophrenia appeared about 40,000 years ago, when the first modern humans arrived in Europe and wiped out the Neanderthals.
The team’s research paper on the evolutionary pattern of schizophrenia risk variants was published in the July 4 issue of Oxford Journals’ Schizophrenia Bulletin.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder with a wide range of symptoms, most notably delusions and hallucinations, such as hearing voices, social withdrawal and aggressive behaviour.
John Nash, the Nobel-prize winning mathematician who invented game theory and whose life inspired the film A Beautiful Mind, was one of the more than 20 million patients diagnosed with the disorder around the world annually.