Publications by authors named "Bragi Walters"

Background: The contributions of genetic and environmental risk factors to hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) are both poorly understood.

Objective: To identify sequence variants that associate with HS and determine the contribution of environmental risk factors and inflammatory diseases to HS pathogenesis.

Methods: A genome-wide association meta-analysis of 4814 HS cases (Denmark: 1977; Iceland: 1266; Finland: 800; UK: 569; and US: 202) and 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers analyzed genetic data from nearly 130,000 cancer patients and over 730,000 healthy controls to identify variants linked to cancer risk across 22 cancer types.
  • Four high-risk genes were found: BIK (prostate cancer), ATG12 (colorectal cancer), TG (thyroid cancer), and CMTR2 (lung cancer and melanoma).
  • Additionally, two genes, AURKB (general cancer risk) and PPP1R15A (breast cancer), were associated with decreased cancer risk, indicating potential pathways for cancer prevention strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder primarily affecting language in the absence of a known biomedical condition, which may have a large impact on a person's life and mental health. Family-based studies indicate a strong genetic component in DLD, but genetic studies of DLD are scarce. In this study we estimated the heritability of DLD and its genetic correlations with related disorders and traits in sample of >25,000 individuals from the Danish Blood Donor Study for whom we had both genotype data and questionnaire data on language disorder and language support.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Age at menopause (AOM) has a substantial impact on fertility and disease risk. While many loci with variants that associate with AOM have been identified through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) under an additive model, other genetic models are rarely considered. Here through GWAS meta-analysis under the recessive model of 174,329 postmenopausal women from Iceland, Denmark, the United Kingdom (UK; UK Biobank) and Norway, we study low-frequency variants with a large effect on AOM.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Parkinson's disease (PD) is a serious neurodegenerative disorder, and rising cases emphasize the need to identify factors that can be changed to reduce risk.
  • - A study involving 8,647 PD patients and 777,693 controls identified a new link between rare ITSN1 gene variants and PD, supported by other research databases.
  • - The research suggests that issues with Rho GTPases and synaptic vesicle transport might play a role in PD development, indicating potential new treatment strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates childhood daytime urinary incontinence (DUI) by identifying genetic variants that increase the risk, shedding light on the condition which is often stigmatized and not well understood.
  • - A genome-wide association study was performed on a large cohort from Denmark and replicated in Iceland, discovering significant genetic variants on chromosomes 6 and 20 linked to genes involved in neuronal development and bladder function.
  • - The research found that DUI has a hereditary component and is genetically correlated with conditions like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and BMI, suggesting new directions for treatment options.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Essential tremor (ET) is a common neurological disorder, but its biological causes are still not well understood.
  • A comprehensive study involving over 16,000 ET cases identified 12 genetic variants linked to the disorder, suggesting several potential causal genes, including CA3 and CPLX1.
  • The findings also reveal associations between ET and other conditions like Parkinson's disease, depression, and anxiety, which could lead to new therapeutic targets for treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a high degree of comorbidity, including substance misuse. We aimed to assess whether ADHD polygenic risk scores (PRS) could predict ADHD diagnosis in alcohol dependence (AD). ADHD PRS were generated for 1223 AD subjects with ADHD diagnosis information and 1818 healthy controls.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Migraine is a complicated neurovascular condition with varying symptoms, traditionally studied as a single type in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), but this research focuses on two main subtypes: migraine with aura (MA) and migraine without aura (MO).
  • The study analyzed large datasets from six European populations, identifying four new gene variants associated with MA and classifying 13 variants for MO, highlighting a significant frameshift variant in PRRT2 linked to MA and epilepsy.
  • Additionally, testing on rare variants showed that loss-of-function mutations in SCN11A provide strong protection against migraine, while another variant affecting KCNK5 offers large protection against both migraine and brain aneurysms, suggesting new avenues for treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Depression is a prevalent psychiatric disorder and major global disability, and a study involving over 1.3 million people identified 243 genetic risk loci, with 64 being newly discovered, many linked to glutamate and GABA receptor genes targeted by antidepressant medications.
  • The research showed depression is highly polygenic, meaning it's influenced by many genetic variants, with about 11,700 variants accounting for 90% of heritability; many of these variants also affect other psychiatric disorders and educational outcomes.
  • The study highlighted genetic and clinical differences within depression subgroups, indicating those with a higher polygenic burden face significantly increased risks for recurrence and other mental health issues, with notable differences based on sex.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The dense co-occurrence of psychiatric disorders questions the categorical classification tradition and motivates efforts to establish dimensional constructs with neurobiological foundations that transcend diagnostic boundaries. In this study, we examined the genetic liability for eight major psychiatric disorder phenotypes under both a disorder-specific and a transdiagnostic framework. The study sample (n = 513) was deeply phenotyped, consisting of 452 patients from tertiary care with mood disorders, anxiety disorders (ANX), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorders, and/or substance use disorders (SUD) and 61 unaffected comparison individuals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Genotypes causing pregnancy loss and perinatal mortality are depleted among living individuals and are therefore difficult to find. To explore genetic causes of recessive lethality, we searched for sequence variants with deficit of homozygosity among 1.52 million individuals from six European populations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Allele counts of sequence variants obtained by whole genome sequencing (WGS) often play a central role in interpreting the results of genetic and genomic research. However, such variant counts are not readily available for individuals in the Danish population. Here, we present a dataset with allele counts for sequence variants (single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and indels) identified from WGS of 8,671 (5,418 females) individuals from the Danish population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • ADHD is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a strong genetic basis, as shown in a large study involving 38,691 individuals with the disorder compared to 186,843 controls.
  • Researchers found 27 significant genomic regions linked to ADHD, with many genes related to early brain development and certain brain cell types, suggesting a biological basis for the disorder.
  • The study also highlighted that many genetic factors influencing ADHD overlap with other psychiatric conditions and are correlated with cognitive challenges, particularly in areas like attention and reasoning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Intracranial volume (ICV), measured through MRI or head circumference, is hereditary and linked to cognitive abilities and neurological disorders.
  • A genome-wide association study identified 64 genetic variants associated with ICV, explaining about 5% of its variation and pointing to 12 key genes involved in cranial conditions.
  • The study found that ICV is connected to brain region sizes and various traits, with Parkinson's disease linked to larger ICV and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) associated with smaller ICV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Endophenotypes are heritable and quantifiable traits indexing genetic liability for a disorder. Here, we examined three potential endophenotypes, working memory function, response inhibition, and reaction time variability, for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) measured as a dimensional latent trait in a large general population sample derived from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. The genetic risk for ADHD was estimated using polygenic risk scores (PRS) whereas ADHD traits were quantified as a dimensional continuum using Bartlett factor score estimates, derived from Attention Problems items from the Child Behaviour Checklist and Effortful Control items from the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The aim of Copenhagen Hospital Biobank-Cardiovascular Disease Cohort (CHB-CVDC) is to establish a cohort that can accelerate our understanding of CVD initiation and progression by jointly studying genetics, diagnoses, treatments and risk factors.

Participants: The CHB-CVDC is a large genomic cohort of patients with CVD. CHB-CVDC currently includes 96 308 patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common nerve entrapment issue, and the biological reasons behind it are still not fully understood.
  • A large study involving nearly 50,000 CTS cases identified 53 genetic variants linked to the condition, with a specific gene variant (p.Glu366Lys in SERPINA1) showing protective effects against CTS.
  • The research indicates that CTS risk is influenced by 22 genes and highlights the extracellular matrix's importance, along with the genetic connections to traits like height and BMI, as well as factors such as hormonal therapy and osteoarthritis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Back pain is prevalent and complex, with this study exploring its genetic links through a genome-wide association approach involving nearly 120,000 cases of dorsalgia and about 59,000 of intervertebral disc disorder.
  • Researchers identified 41 genetic variants across 33 different locations, with the strongest correlation to a specific variant in the CHST3 gene that impacts intervertebral discs.
  • The study highlights that certain rare loss-of-function variants in the SLC13A1 gene may contribute significantly to intervertebral disc disorders, pointing to genetic factors that influence cartilage, bone health, and related inflammatory processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vertigo is the leading symptom of vestibular disorders and a major risk factor for falls. In a genome-wide association study of vertigo (N = 48,072, N = 894,541), we uncovered an association with six common sequence variants in individuals of European ancestry, including missense variants in ZNF91, OTOG, OTOGL, and TECTA, and a cis-eQTL for ARMC9. The association of variants in ZNF91, OTOGL, and OTOP1 was driven by an association with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF