Very interesting. The paper suggests though that for many of these it's unlikely it's due to an immune response: > It is not clear yet how the expression of th

Very interesting. The paper suggests though that for many of these it's unlikely it's due to an immune response: > It is not clear yet how the expression of the high confidence risk HERVs may play a role in psychiatric disorders. It was previously hypothesised that differential HERV expression in psychiatric cases was likely to be a by-product of immune responses against current or past infections34. Indeed, HERV expression is modulated by exposure to several pathogens35,36 and can activate inflammatory cascades37. This is an interesting theory that corroborates the fact that individuals with psychiatric disorders typically have higher incidences of infections38,39,40. However, our main analysis found that 1238 HERVs expressed in the brain are regulated in cis, some of which in association with risk for complex psychiatric traits. This indicates that there are HERV expression mechanisms directly contributing to disorder aetiology, that are not simply part of compensatory responses, or triggered by environmental factors.