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SCIENCESaturday 13 February 2016

Study: Neanderthal DNA may influence modern depression risk

MALCOLM RITTER This Friday, March 20, 2009 file photo shows reconstructions of a Neanderthal man, left, and woman at the Neanderthal museum in
AP Science Writer Mettmann, Germany.
NEW YORK (AP) — A new
study says a person’s risk Associated Press
of becoming depressed or
hooked on smoking may tions. sion, with some DNA bits doubled the risk of getting monwealth University who
be influenced by DNA in- The researchers focused on raising the risk and others hooked on smoking. didn’t participate in the
herited from Neanderthals. bits of Neanderthal DNA lowering it. Overall, the Tobacco was not available study, said he was skeptical
Researchers found evi- that had been identified in analysis found, this DNA af- to Neanderthals, so “they that the effect on smok-
dence that one bit of Ne- prior research. They looked fected the risk by about 1 were not walking around ing addiction could be so
anderthal DNA can boost for effects from about 1,500 percent. For an individual, puffing on cigarettes,” strong, given previous stud-
the risk of tobacco ad- of them in medical records the effect would depend Capra told a press confer- ies of genetic influence on
diction, while others can of some 28,000 Americans on just which bits that per- ence Thursday. It’s hard to tobacco behavior.
slightly raise or lower the of European ancestry, for son carried, Capra said. say what effect, if any, that Overall, Kendler said he
risk of being diagnosed whom they had genetic in- A second analysis found bit of DNA had on them, he found the evidence sug-
with depression. formation. evidence that a particular said in a telephone inter- gestive but not convincing
It’s the latest in a series of One analysis supported a bit of Neanderthal DNA, view. for the proposed influences
studies of the Neanderthal previously suggested influ- one quite rare in the pop- Kenneth Kendler, a genet- on depression and tobac-
genetic heritage in mod- ence on the risk of depres- ulation studied, roughly ics expert at Virginia Com- co use.q
ern people. Past studies
have suggested it raises risk
of allergies, for example.
Neanderthals and modern
people split off from each
other on the evolution-
ary tree hundreds of thou-
sands of years ago. But an-
cestors of modern people
interbred with Neander-
thals about 50,000 years
ago after leaving Africa.
So in people of Asian or Eu-
ropean ancestry, around
2 percent of DNA can be
traced to Neanderthals.
Studying that DNA might
help give insights into the
biological roots of some
diseases, said Tony Capra,
an evolutionary geneticist
at Vanderbilt University.
He is senior author of the
study, which was released
Thursday by the journal Sci-
ence.
The DNA linked to depres-
sion or tobacco addiction
affects risk, and doesn’t by
itself produce those condi-