The role of short tandem repeat DNA variation in the evolution of human psychological diversity

We propose to investigate the role of natural selection acting on short tandem repeat (STR) variation in shaping human psychological diversity. We will characterise STR variation in regions of a set of prioritized genes associated with psychological phenotypes; analyse the variation for evidence that it has been uniquely shaped by the action of natural selection in humans: and confirm the unique functional properties of the selected alleles by assessing differential effects on transcription in the cortex, in cis and trans, of selected alleles post mortem.