Genetic Associations of Anhedonia: Insights into Overlap of Mental and Somatic Disorders.

Background: Anhedonia is characterized by a reduced ability to anticipate, experience, and/or learn about pleasure. This phenomenon has a transdiagnostic nature and is one of the key symptoms of mood disorders, schizophrenia, addictions, and somatic conditions.

Aim: To evaluate the genetic architecture of anhedonia and its overlap with other mental disorders and somatic conditions.

Denisovan admixture facilitated environmental adaptation in Papua New Guinean populations.

Neandertals and Denisovans, having inhabited distinct regions in Eurasia and possibly Oceania for over 200,000 y, experienced ample time to adapt to diverse environmental challenges these regions presented. Among present-day human populations, Papua New Guineans (PNG) stand out as one of the few carrying substantial amounts of both Neandertal and Denisovan DNA, a result of past admixture events with these archaic human groups. This study investigates the distribution of introgressed Denisovan and Neandertal DNA within two distinct PNG populations, residing in the highlands of Mt Wilhelm and the lowlands of Daru Island.

Positive selection in the genomes of two Papua New Guinean populations at distinct altitude levels.

Highlanders and lowlanders of Papua New Guinea have faced distinct environmental stress, such as hypoxia and environment-specific pathogen exposure, respectively. In this study, we explored the top genomics regions and the candidate driver SNPs for selection in these two populations using newly sequenced whole-genomes of 54 highlanders and 74 lowlanders. We identified two candidate SNPs under selection - one in highlanders, associated with red blood cell traits and another in lowlanders, which is associated with white blood cell count - both potentially influencing the heart rate of Papua New Guineans in opposite directions.

[Anhedonia in mood disorders and somatic diseases: results of exploratory Mendelian randomization analysis].

Objective: To conduct an exploratory Mendelian randomization analysis of the causal relationships of anhedonia with a wide range of psychiatric and somatic phenotypes based on the genetic data of participants in a population study.

Material And Methods: This cross-sectional study included 4520 participants, of which 50.4% (=2280) were female.

GWAS of depression in 4,520 individuals from the Russian population highlights the role of () in the gut-brain axis.

We present the results of the depression Genome-wide association studies study performed on a cohort of Russian-descent individuals, which identified a novel association at chromosome 7q21 locus. Gene prioritization analysis based on already known depression risk genes indicated as the most probable gene from the locus and potential susceptibility gene for the disease. Brain and gut expression patterns were the main features highlighting functional relatedness of to the previously known depression risk genes.