ADAMS · Genomic variations underlying common behavior diseases and cognition trait in human populations

The subject of the proposal is the search and analysis of genomic variations underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD), alcoholism and schizophrenia – wide-spread diseases in human populations. Schizophrenia and alcoholism are common forms of behavior pathology and disability in adult life. AD is a most common form of dementia in human populations. Though the genomic variations presumably associated with AD, alcoholism and schizophrenia were described in preliminary studies for European populations, the significance of the putatively associated alleles, genetic background as well as the role of environmental factors is still poorly understood for them. Within the framework of this project we plan to extend the studies of genomic variations underlying these diseases by performing genome-wide association analysis in cohorts of patients and normal individuals from several ethnic populations of Europe and Russia.The genetic factors for cognition endophenotype will also be studied. Candidate regions, both newly found and reported previously for these diseases will be additionally analyzed by sequencing. Such large scale population studies combined with deep analysis of particular genes and genomic regions will allow us to reveal genetic reasons for susceptibility to these diseases. On the basis of this research we propose to contribute to development of a diagnostic instrument for the analysis of genetic risk factors for AD, alcoholism and schizophrenia. Comparison of several ethnic cohorts (different populations from Russia and Central/Western and Southern Europe) will also help to elucidate the influence of genetic background and environmental factors on the etiology of neuropsychiatric diseases. Consortium includes 6 groups from EU/AC and 7 groups from Russia. The participants are leading specialists in their fields and have joint publications on subjects related to this proposal.