Some people seem born to pack up and leave — and their genetics may help explain why.
From ancient nomads to modern task hoppersthe desire to move is perhaps partly written in our DNA.
The tendency of people to put down roots far from their place of birth is partly inherited and rooted in early brain developmentthe researchers report February 6 on bioRxiv.org. Furthermore, the underlying genetic signatures appear both in modern populations and in ancient human genomes dating back thousands of years.
The results, based on a large genetic study, suggest that long distance migration is shaped not only by employment, housing and politics, but also by biological traits related to cognition and risk-taking that have been favored by evolution for millennia.
“There is something in our genome that affects our decisions” to move, says Ivan Kuznetsov, a behavioral geneticist at the University of Tartu in Estonia who was not involved in the research.
For the new study, neurogeneticist Jacob Michaelson of the University of Iowa in Iowa City and his colleagues analyzed genetic data from about 250,000 people in the United Kingdom and compared the distance between people and their place of birth with the DNA patterns of their genome. They found that people who moved farther away tended to share variants in genes involved in brain developmentparticularly those active in cells called excitatory neurons, which play key roles in learning, planning, and evaluating uncertain outcomes.
Although these genetic differences account for only a small part of migratory behavior — about 5 percent of the differences in how far people move — the signal persists even after accounting for education and health, suggesting that the urge to move isn’t just a matter of educational credentials or well-being, but is rooted, at least in part, in our biology.
Genetic models were not unique to modern societies either. Michaelson’s team analyzed ancient DNA sequences from more than 1,300 individuals who lived up to 10,000 years ago. The same genetic variants linked to migration predicted the distance individuals traveled during their past lives, measured by the distance between individuals’ birthplaces and presumed burial locations.
These variants have also increased in frequency over time, a sign that natural selection has favored traits related to mobility and exploration. as humans spread into new environments. Even centuries after the Age of Exploration, when global empire building reshaped the flows of human movement in the 15th and 16th centuries, these ancient trends still seem to influence who moves today – and which places will benefit economically.
A separate analysis of U.S. data suggested that these genetic trends could shape regional economic fortunes. Researchers calculated an average “migration score” — a DNA-based estimate of people’s tendency to move away from home — for residents of 222 counties, drawing on genetic data from more than 3,000 adults recruited as part of an autism research study. They found that counties that welcomed more residents with genes linked to migration tended to experience faster income growth afterward.
This trend raises the possibility that long-distance movers may contribute to economic dynamism at the local level, perhaps by bringing new skills, ideas, or risk-taking energy to the communities they join. Still, scientists caution that the analysis is exploratory and cannot show cause and effect.
“It’s quite logical,” says Vasili Pankratov, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Tartu who, with Kuznetsov, co-authored a study last year. linking genes to contemporary migration patterns in their country. But, Pankratov says, “Whenever you get into the area of the genetics of social behavior, things get very complicated. »
