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Not paracetamol - Neanderthal?!?! (Don't tell the US president)

Phased

My social media feed just alerted me to this study from 2024 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02593-7

According to this, it's not that autistic people have more Neanderthal DNA than neurotypicals just that unique brain related DNA found in Neanderthals is more common in autistic people.

The study reckons this explains and correlates with differences in social cognition and visual processing in autistic people as carry overs from the neurodiversity of early humans.

The study, as so many do, says that "more research is necessary".

So what do we think?

Another example of 2 plus 2 making 42 from eager scientists?

OK, if the evidence is good maybe that helps explain what's occurring and maybe where things come from?

And, possibly, so what??

I'm off to light the camp fire for dinner... meanwhile, thoughts anyone?

:-)

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  • It seems a bit thin on evidence. It is known that East Asians have about twice as much, on average, Neanderthal introgression as Europeans. If Neanderthal genetic variants were strongly implicated in autism then a much higher incidence of autism in East Asians compared to Europeans would be expected. I do not think that this is the case.

  • in reply to Martin

    Thanks I suppose the specific genes for the brain differences would need to be measured in that population to explore it further.  Maybe in Asia the genes that are more retained in the East Asian population are not specifically the brain related ones?

  • in reply to Phased

    We know that most of the Neanderthal genome has been winnowed out by selective pressures over the last 50,000 years. If Neanderthal variants still exist they must be either neutral or beneficial overall. There will have been some variation in selective pressure based on climate, isolation, food sources, diseases etc. that ancestral populations have been exposed to, but I think that the overall percentage of Neanderthal DNA in a population would still be indicative. Also, people of sub-Saharan ancestry, with negligible levels of Neanderthal DNA can be autistic. 

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  • in reply to Phased

    We know that most of the Neanderthal genome has been winnowed out by selective pressures over the last 50,000 years. If Neanderthal variants still exist they must be either neutral or beneficial overall. There will have been some variation in selective pressure based on climate, isolation, food sources, diseases etc. that ancestral populations have been exposed to, but I think that the overall percentage of Neanderthal DNA in a population would still be indicative. Also, people of sub-Saharan ancestry, with negligible levels of Neanderthal DNA can be autistic. 

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