Analysis of genetic association of dementia and handedness

 
   Lead Investigator:    Gerard Schellenberg
   Institution      :    U Penn/ADGC
   E-Mail           :    gerardsc@mail.med.upenn.edu
   Proposal ID      :    569


   Publications:


1  Mlynarski EE, Tang M, Amlie^{unicode 002D}Wolf A, Qu L, Kuzma A, Cantwell L, Ringman JM, Schellenberg GD, Wang LS
   Ambidexterity and Alzheimer's disease risk
   2017   Abstract  ASHG 2017 , 

   SUBMITTED





   Proposal Description:
   Neurodegenerative diseases are generally thought of as late-onset illnesses for which there are substantial environmental influences to their etiology. However, our understanding of their genetic underpinnings is increasing and there is evidence that genetic risk factors may also influence intellectual- and therefore neuro-development1 including cerebral laterality. This is supported by the observation of a higher prevalence of left-handedness among persons with early onset Alzheimer???s disease (AD) relative to those with late onset disease. In the frontotemporal dementias (FTDs), which are of younger onset and have stronger genetic components, a higher prevalence of non-right handedness has been reported in semantic dementia but not other forms of  primary progressive aphasia, suggesting differential brain development in pathologically and clinically distinct dementia subtypes. These observations suggest that genetic influences on handedness may interact with those underlying the degenerative dementias. We propose to use the NCRAD ADGC data  to perform a genome-wide association study to identify genes related to handedness in 1) persons with early- and late-onset AD, 2) persons with different FTD subtypes, and 3) among all persons contributing  DNA to this endeavor.