Genetics

This post covers Corsten and colleagues' 2026 Annals of Neurology brief communication, which tested the MS progression variant rs10191329*A for age-related brain atrophy in 4,815 people without MS from the Rotterdam Study. It follows the cohort and the single-scanner imaging setup, the absence of any cross-sectional effect until age is brought in, the linear mixed-effects models showing lower total brain, cortical and total gray matter volume at intercept with a significant interaction in the younger age spline, the authors' four reasons the effect is far smaller than the 28% reported in MS, the null result for MS susceptibility risk scores, and their reading of what the midlife-limited age pattern does support.