Mapping genetic convergence across brain structure, mental health, and cardiometabolic disease

作者：Jakub Kopál, Alexey Shadrin, Dennis van der Meer, Olav B. Smeland, Sara Stinson, Linn Rødevand, Nadine Parker, Kevin S. O’Connell, Oleksandr Frei, Srdjan Djurovic, Anders M. Dale, Ole A. Andreassen · 发表于：Communications Medicine · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1038/s43856-026-01510-z · 研究领域：Health, Environment, Cognitive Aging、Mental Health Research Topics、Functional Brain Connectivity Studies

Individuals with psychiatric disorders frequently experience comorbid cardiometabolic conditions, complicating treatment and worsening health outcomes. Both psychiatric and cardiometabolic disorders have been individually associated with alterations in brain structure. Yet, it remains unclear whether these associations stem from a shared genetic basis that underlies their frequent co-occurrence. We analyzed genome-wide association summary statistics from large international consortia of individuals of European ancestry, including psychiatric disorder GWAS with case–control sample sizes ranging from ~18,000 to ~158,000 cases, cardiometabolic disease GWAS with up to ~242,000 cases, and cortical morphology GWAS from UK Biobank comprising ~39,000 individuals. We applied complementary multivariate, causal, and mediation genetic analyses to disentangle genetic factors underlying brain alterations and comorbidity. Here we show that patterns of genetic overlap differ across disorders. Schizophrenia exhibits substantial polygenic overlap with cortical thickness and type 2 diabetes, despite low genetic correlation. In contrast, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is more strongly correlated with cardiometabolic disease but shows limited overlap with cortical morphology. Notably, cortical surface area partly mediates the genetic association between ADHD and type 2 diabetes. Pathway analyses highlight metabolic stress processes in ADHD as well as neurodevelopmental and immune...