Black Americans have been underrepresented in most genomic studies of neurological disorders. As a result, scientists don't know much about whether African ancestry affects a person's risk for these disorders or their response to a particular treatment. To help close this gap, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, African American community leaders in Baltimore, and researchers from Duke University and Morgan State University created theInitiative in 2019.
Now, the first study to come out of the initiative finds that genes associated with African ancestry seem to affect some brain cells in ways that could increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and stroke. But genes associated with European ancestry seem to influence other brain cells that may increase the risk of Parkinson's disease, which is less common in Black Americans.