“A lot of times people have recurrent headaches, but they don’t realize a Chiari malformation is the cause of their headaches,” Haller said. “And even if they do, not everyone is willing to have brain surgery to fix it. Sequencing revealed that people with Chiari 1 malformation were significantly more likely to carry mutations in a family of genes known as chromodomain genes. Chromodomain genes help control access to long stretches of DNA, thereby regulating expression of whole sets of genes. “A lot of kids that have autism or developmental disorders associated with chromodomain genes may have undiscovered Chiari malformations,” Haller said.

Source: Hindustan Times December 29, 2020 04:57 UTC