{"id":92485,"date":"2025-07-25T22:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T22:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92485\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T22:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T22:22:10","slug":"could-mental-illness-begin-before-youre-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92485\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Mental Illness Begin Before You&#8217;re Born?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Key Questions Answered<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q: When do genes linked to mental illness start affecting the brain?<\/strong><br \/><strong>A:<\/strong> Many genes associated with neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases are active during the earliest stages of fetal brain development\u2014far earlier than previously believed.<br \/><strong>Q: How did researchers uncover this early genetic activity?<\/strong><br \/><strong>A:<\/strong> By simulating the effects of nearly 3,000 disease-related genes in fetal brain stem cells using human and mouse brain data and in vitro models, researchers identified when and where these genes impact brain-building processes.<br \/><strong>Q: Why is this discovery important for treatment?<\/strong><br \/><strong>A:<\/strong> Understanding which genes act in specific cell types and developmental windows could lead to more precise, personalized therapies targeting the root of mental and neurodegenerative disorders.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary: <\/strong>A groundbreaking study has revealed that genes linked to mental and neurodegenerative disorders, such as autism, depression, and Parkinson\u2019s, begin influencing brain development during the earliest fetal stages. These genes are already active in neural stem cells\u2014the progenitors that form the brain\u2014long before symptoms arise.<\/p>\n<p>By combining human and mouse data with lab-grown cell models, researchers mapped how these genes behave across developmental stages and brain cell types. This opens new doors for early diagnosis, gene therapy, and targeted treatment of conditions once thought to develop later in life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Early Origins:<\/strong> Key disease-related genes are active in fetal neural stem cells.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wide Disease Range:<\/strong> Genes linked to autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer\u2019s, and more show early activation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Therapeutic Potential:<\/strong> Findings may guide early interventions and gene-targeted treatments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong>IMIM<\/p>\n<p><strong>The origin of some neuropsychiatric diseases, such as autism, bipolar disorder, or depression, and certain neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer\u2019s and Parkinson\u2019s, can be found in\u00a0very early stages of brain formation in the fetus. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That is, earlier than previously recognized, according to a study by the Hospital del Mar Research Institute and Yale University, published in\u00a0Nature Communications.<\/p>\n<p>  <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"799\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/genetics-mental-health-neurodevelopment.jpg\" alt=\"This shows a developing brain and neurons branching out.\"  \/> In all these pathologies, genes involved in the earliest phases of brain development when neural stem cells are functional are found. Credit: Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p>The work focused \u201con searching for the origin of mental illnesses in the earliest stages of fetal development, especially in the brain stem cells\u201d, explains Dr. Gabriel Santpere, Miguel Servet researcher and coordinator of the Neurogenomics Research Group at the Biomedical Informatics Research Program of the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, a joint group with Pompeu Fabra University.<\/p>\n<p>To do this, they used a list of\u00a0nearly 3,000 genes linked to neuropsychiatric diseases, neurodegenerative pathologies, and cortical malformations, and simulated the effect of their alteration on the cells involved in brain development.<\/p>\n<p>The results indicate that many of these genes\u00a0are already functional during the initial phases of fetal\u00a0development in stem cells, the progenitors that build the brain, creating neurons and their supporting structures.<\/p>\n<p>Achieving this was not easy. This moment of brain development is very difficult to study. For this reason, the researchers combined multiple data from human and mouse brains, as well as in vitro cellular models.<\/p>\n<p>As Dr. Nicola Micali, associate researcher at Dr. Pasko Rakic\u2019s lab at Yale University and co-leader of the research, points out, \u201cscientists usually study the genes of mental illnesses in adults, but in this work we discovered that many of these genes already act during the early stages of fetal brain formation, and that their alterations can affect brain development and promote mental disorders later on\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>During the study,\u00a0specific regulatory networks for each cell type involved in brain development were simulated\u00a0to see how the activation or deactivation of the analyzed genes linked to various brain diseases affected progenitor cells in their different stages. This allowed them to observe the importance of each gene in the emergence of alterations that cause various diseases.<\/p>\n<p>The list ranges from microcephaly and hydrocephaly to autism, depression, bipolar disorder, anorexia, or schizophrenia, and also includes Alzheimer\u2019s and Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>In all these pathologies, genes involved in the earliest phases of brain development when neural stem cells are functional are found.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cover a wide spectrum of diseases that the brain can have and look at how the genes involved in these conditions behave in neural stem cells\u201d, adds Xoel Mato-Blanco, researcher at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, he points out that the work \u201cidentifies temporal windows and cell types where the action of these genes is most relevant, indicating when and where you should target the function of these genes\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Having this information \u201cis useful to understand the origin of diseases that affect the cerebral cortex, that is, how genetic alterations translate into these pathologies\u201d, says Dr. Santpere.<\/p>\n<p>Understanding these mechanisms and the role of each gene in each disease can help develop targeted therapies that act on them, opening opportunities for gene\u00a0therapy and personalized treatments.<\/p>\n<p>About this genetics, mental health, and neurodevelopment research news<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Author: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#3f525c5e534c56515e7f56525652115a4c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Marta Calsina<\/a><br \/><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/imim.es\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IMIM<\/a><br \/><strong>Contact: <\/strong>Marta Calsina \u2013 IMIM<br \/><strong>Image: <\/strong>The image is credited to Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Original Research: <\/strong>Open access.<br \/>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/s41467-025-61316-w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Early developmental origins of cortical disorders modeled in human neural stem cells<\/a>\u201d by Gabriel Santpere et al. Nature Communications<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abtract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Early developmental origins of cortical disorders modeled in human neural stem cells<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The implications of the early phases of human telencephalic development, involving neural stem cells (NSCs), in the etiology of cortical disorders remain elusive.<\/p>\n<p>Here, we explore the expression dynamics of cortical and neuropsychiatric disorder-associated genes in datasets generated from human NSCs across telencephalic fate transitions in vitro and in vivo.<\/p>\n<p>We identify risk genes expressed in brain organizers and sequential gene regulatory networks throughout corticogenesis, revealing disease-specific critical phases when NSCs may be more vulnerable to gene dysfunction and converging signaling across multiple diseases.<\/p>\n<p>Further, we simulate the impact of risk transcription factor (TF) depletions on neural cell trajectories traversing human corticogenesis and observe a spatiotemporal-dependent effect for each perturbation.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, single-cell transcriptomics of autism-affected patient-derived NSCs in vitro reveals recurrent expression alteration of TFs orchestrating brain patterning and NSC lineage commitment.<\/p>\n<p>This work opens perspectives to explore human brain dysfunction at early phases of development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Key Questions Answered: Q: When do genes linked to mental illness start affecting the brain?A: Many genes associated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":92486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[823,824,54246,826,827,828,815,517,61208,829,830,831,1737,1185,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-92485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-asd","9":"tag-autism","10":"tag-bipolar-disorder","11":"tag-brain-development","12":"tag-brain-research","13":"tag-developmental-neuroscience","14":"tag-genetics","15":"tag-mental-health","16":"tag-neural-stem-cells","17":"tag-neurobiology","18":"tag-neurodevelopment","19":"tag-neuroscience","20":"tag-psychology","21":"tag-schizophrenia","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114916212673051147","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}