Initiative Addresses Racial Disparities in Neuroscience

The African Ancestry Neuroscience Research Initiative plans to boost inclusion in genomic studies and support a more diverse generation of neuroscientists.

Written byAmanda Heidt

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ABOVE: The Lieber Institute’s Rahul Bharadwaj examines brain tissue.
LIEBER INSTITUTE FOR BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

Search among the millions of volunteers in the world’s brain-based genomic studies, and you will be hard-pressed to find people of African ancestry. The largest meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of Parkinson’s disease to date, for example, didn’t include any individuals of primarily African descent among its more than 1.4 million participants, nor did a 2019 meta-analysis of GWASs examining depression. Only 4 percent of all neurological disorder research contained in the GWAS database of the National Human Genome Research Institute includes minority participants.

Databases such as these are critical to research on brain disorders and to genetics-based precision medicine. Yet the lack of data from non-Europeans means that researchers know very little about the genetic variants associated with disease risk in people of African descent, or about genetic biomarkers for disease severity, drug response, or ...

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Meet the Author

Amanda Heidt
Amanda first began dabbling in scicom as a master’s student studying marine science at Moss Landing Marine Labs, where she edited the student blog and interned at a local NPR station. She enjoyed that process of demystifying science so much that after receiving her degree in 2019, she went straight into a second master’s program in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Formerly an intern at The Scientist, Amanda joined the team as a staff reporter and editor in 2021 and oversaw the publication’s internship program, assigned and edited the Foundations, Scientist to Watch, and Short Lit columns, and contributed original reporting across the publication. Amanda’s stories often focus on issues of equity and representation in academia, and she brings this same commitment to DEI to the Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains and to the board of the National Association of Science Writers, which she has served on since 2022. She is currently based in the outdoor playground that is Moab, Utah. Read more of her work at www.amandaheidt.com.
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