Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Disease Genes
The really big news recently is of course the discovery of a new multiple sclerosis gene on chromosome 5. This is pretty cool, not only in terms of hope for MS patients, but also because this gene could be key to other autoimmune processes and diseases.
Secondly and less convincingly, an Oxford team claims to have found the (or at least a) gene for left-handedness. On the upside, this is interesting. On the downside, the gene also appears to increase risk of schizophrenia. This coincidence is odd but not totally shocking - schizophrenia seems to be a problem with how the brain organizes information, and a gene that pretty radically changes all those systems may well make them more likely to screw up.
Secondly and less convincingly, an Oxford team claims to have found the (or at least a) gene for left-handedness. On the upside, this is interesting. On the downside, the gene also appears to increase risk of schizophrenia. This coincidence is odd but not totally shocking - schizophrenia seems to be a problem with how the brain organizes information, and a gene that pretty radically changes all those systems may well make them more likely to screw up.
Labels: brain, geneitcs, genes, health, lateralization, left handedness, MS, neuroscience, schizophrenia
