By Amy Peterson
Studying genetic differential expression using postmortem human brain tissue requires an understanding of the effect brain tissue degradation has on genetic expression. Particularly when brain tissue degradation confounds1 the differences in gene expression levels between subject groups. This problem of confounding necessitates measures from a control dataset of postmortem tissue from individuals who do not have the outcome of interest. Doing so provides a comparative measure of the impact of tissue degradation on expression that can then be used in a case-control study to examine the impact of the outcome of interest on genetic expression.