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Sandroni V, Chaumette B. Understanding the Emergence of Schizophrenia in the Light of Human Evolution: New Perspectives in Genetics. GENES, BRAIN, AND BEHAVIOR 2025; 24:e70013. [PMID: 39801370 PMCID: PMC11725983 DOI: 10.1111/gbb.70013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2024] [Revised: 12/17/2024] [Accepted: 12/21/2024] [Indexed: 01/16/2025]
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a frequent and disabling disease. The persistence of the disorder despite its harmful consequences represents an evolutionary paradox. Based on recent discoveries in genetics, scientists have formulated the "price-to-pay" hypothesis: schizophrenia would be intimately related to human evolution, particularly to brain development and human-specific higher cognitive functions. The objective of the present work is to question scientific literature about the relationship between schizophrenia and human evolution from a genetic point of view. In the last two decades, research investigated the association between schizophrenia and a few genetic evolutionary markers: Human accelerated regions, segmental duplications, and highly repetitive DNA such as the Olduvai domain. Other studies focused on the action of natural selection on schizophrenia-associated genetic variants, also thanks to the complete sequencing of archaic hominins' genomes (Neanderthal, Denisova). Results suggested that a connection between human evolution and schizophrenia may exist; nonetheless, much research is still needed, and it is possible that a definitive answer to the evolutionary paradox of schizophrenia will never be found.
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Affiliation(s)
- Veronica Sandroni
- Université Paris Cité, Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris (IPNP)ParisFrance
- GHU‐Paris Psychiatrie et NeurosciencesHôpital Sainte AnneParisFrance
| | - Boris Chaumette
- Université Paris Cité, Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris (IPNP)ParisFrance
- GHU‐Paris Psychiatrie et NeurosciencesHôpital Sainte AnneParisFrance
- Human Genetics and Cognitive FunctionsInstitut Pasteur, Université Paris CitéParisFrance
- Department of PsychiatryMcGill UniversityMontrealCanada
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Mitteroecker P, Merola GP. The cliff edge model of the evolution of schizophrenia: Mathematical, epidemiological, and genetic evidence. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2024; 160:105636. [PMID: 38522813 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105636] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2023] [Revised: 02/27/2024] [Accepted: 03/16/2024] [Indexed: 03/26/2024]
Abstract
How has schizophrenia, a condition that significantly reduces an individual's evolutionary fitness, remained common across generations and cultures? Numerous theories about the evolution of schizophrenia have been proposed, most of which are not consistent with modern epidemiological and genetic evidence. Here, we briefly review this evidence and explore the cliff edge model of schizophrenia. It suggests that schizophrenia is the extreme manifestation of a polygenic trait or a combination of traits that, within a normal range of variation, confer cognitive, linguistic, and/or social advantages. Only beyond a certain threshold, these traits precipitate the onset of schizophrenia and reduce fitness. We provide the first mathematical model of this qualitative concept and show that it requires only very weak positive selection of the underlying trait(s) to explain today's schizophrenia prevalence. This prediction, along with expectations about the effect size of schizophrenia risk alleles, are surprisingly well matched by empirical evidence. The cliff edge model predicts a dynamic change of selection of risk alleles, which explains the contradictory findings of evolutionary genetic studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Mitteroecker
- Unit for Theoretical Biology, Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Vienna, Djerassiplatz 1, Vienna, Austria; Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Martinstrasse 12, Klosterneuburg, Vienna, Austria.
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Guardiola-Ripoll M, Almodóvar-Payá C, Arias-Magnasco A, Latorre-Guardia M, Papiol S, Canales-Rodríguez EJ, García-León MÁ, Fuentes-Claramonte P, Salavert J, Tristany J, Torres L, Rodríguez-Cano E, Salvador R, Pomarol-Clotet E, Fatjó-Vilas M. Human-specific evolutionary markers linked to foetal neurodevelopment modulate brain surface area in schizophrenia. Commun Biol 2023; 6:1040. [PMID: 37833414 PMCID: PMC10576001 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-05356-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2023] [Accepted: 09/13/2023] [Indexed: 10/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Schizophrenia may represent a trade-off in the evolution of human-specific ontogenetic mechanisms that guide neurodevelopment. Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) are evolutionary markers functioning as neurodevelopmental transcription enhancers that have been associated with brain configuration, neural information processing, and schizophrenia risk. Here, we have investigated the influence of HARs' polygenic load on neuroanatomical measures through a case-control approach (128 patients with schizophrenia and 115 controls). To this end, we have calculated the global schizophrenia Polygenic Risk Score (Global PRSSZ) and that specific to HARs (HARs PRSSZ). We have also estimated the polygenic burden restricted to the HARs linked to transcriptional regulatory elements active in the foetal brain (FB-HARs PRSSZ) and the adult brain (AB-HARs PRSSZ). We have explored the main effects of the PRSs and the PRSs x diagnosis interactions on brain regional cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA). The results indicate that a higher FB-HARs PRSSZ is associated with patients' lower SA in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, the superior temporal cortex, the pars triangularis and the paracentral lobule. While noHARs-derived PRSs show an effect on the risk, our neuroanatomical findings suggest that the human-specific transcriptional regulation during the prenatal period underlies SA variability, highlighting the role of these evolutionary markers in the schizophrenia genomic architecture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Guardiola-Ripoll
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain.
| | - Carmen Almodóvar-Payá
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
| | | | | | - Sergi Papiol
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
- Institute of Psychiatric Phenomics and Genomics (IPPG), University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
- Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany
| | - Erick J Canales-Rodríguez
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
- Signal Processing Laboratory 5 (LTS5), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - María Ángeles García-León
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
| | - Paola Fuentes-Claramonte
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
| | - Josep Salavert
- Hospital Sant Rafael, Germanes Hospitalàries, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Josep Tristany
- Hospital Sagrat Cor, Germanes Hospitalàries, Martorell, Spain
| | - Llanos Torres
- Hospital Mare de Déu de la Mercè, Germanes Hospitalàries, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Elena Rodríguez-Cano
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Benito Menni, Germanes Hospitalàries, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Spain
| | - Raymond Salvador
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
| | - Edith Pomarol-Clotet
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
| | - Mar Fatjó-Vilas
- FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
- CIBERSAM (Biomedical Research Network in Mental Health; Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Madrid, Spain.
- Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
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A Systematic Review of the Human Accelerated Regions in Schizophrenia and Related Disorders: Where the Evolutionary and Neurodevelopmental Hypotheses Converge. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:ijms24043597. [PMID: 36835010 PMCID: PMC9962562 DOI: 10.3390/ijms24043597] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2022] [Revised: 02/03/2023] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 02/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that results from genetic and environmental factors interacting and disrupting neurodevelopmental trajectories. Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) are evolutionarily conserved genomic regions that have accumulated human-specific sequence changes. Thus, studies on the impact of HARs in the context of neurodevelopment, as well as with respect to adult brain phenotypes, have increased considerably in the last few years. Through a systematic approach, we aim to offer a comprehensive review of HARs' role in terms of human brain development, configuration, and cognitive abilities, as well as whether HARs modulate the susceptibility to neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. First, the evidence in this review highlights HARs' molecular functions in the context of the neurodevelopmental regulatory genetic machinery. Second, brain phenotypic analyses indicate that HAR genes' expression spatially correlates with the regions that suffered human-specific cortical expansion, as well as with the regional interactions for synergistic information processing. Lastly, studies based on candidate HAR genes and the global "HARome" variability describe the involvement of these regions in the genetic background of schizophrenia, but also in other neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders. Overall, the data considered in this review emphasise the crucial role of HARs in human-specific neurodevelopment processes and encourage future research on this evolutionary marker for a better understanding of the genetic basis of schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental-related psychiatric disorders. Accordingly, HARs emerge as interesting genomic regions that require further study in order to bridge the neurodevelopmental and evolutionary hypotheses in schizophrenia and other related disorders and phenotypes.
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Duński E, Pękowska A. Keeping the balance: Trade-offs between human brain evolution, autism, and schizophrenia. Front Genet 2022; 13:1009390. [DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2022.1009390] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
The unique qualities of the human brain are a product of a complex evolutionary process. Evolution, famously described by François Jacob as a “tinkerer,” builds upon existing genetic elements by modifying and repurposing them for new functions. Genetic changes in DNA may lead to the emergence of new genes or cause altered gene expression patterns. Both gene and regulatory element mutations may lead to new functions. Yet, this process may lead to side-effects. An evolutionary trade-off occurs when an otherwise beneficial change, which is important for evolutionary success and is under strong positive selection, concurrently results in a detrimental change in another trait. Pleiotropy occurs when a gene affects multiple traits. Antagonistic pleiotropy is a phenomenon whereby a genetic variant leads to an increase in fitness at one life-stage or in a specific environment, but simultaneously decreases fitness in another respect. Therefore, it is conceivable that the molecular underpinnings of evolution of highly complex traits, including brain size or cognitive ability, under certain conditions could result in deleterious effects, which would increase the susceptibility to psychiatric or neurodevelopmental diseases. Here, we discuss possible trade-offs and antagonistic pleiotropies between evolutionary change in a gene sequence, dosage or activity and the susceptibility of individuals to autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. We present current knowledge about genes and alterations in gene regulatory landscapes, which have likely played a role in establishing human-specific traits and have been implicated in those diseases.
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