Copy number variation and brain structure: Lessons learned from chromosome 16p11.2

Abstract

Recent work has linked specific genetic variation found in human populations to risk for developing neuropsychiatric diseases. How that risk is mediated through molecular-, cellular- and systems-level mechanisms now becomes the central question in this field. Two recent papers studying high-penetrance copy number variation at chromosome 16p11.2 find large changes in brain structure, refining hypotheses about the regions of the brain that are affected and implicating specific neurodevelopmental processes in these changes.