Much of this overview of the history and future efforts of ENIGMA highlights its relevance to studies of disease, focusing on psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Even so, only around a third of the ENIGMA data comes from patients with psychiatric illness, and much can be learned about the genetic factors that drive normal variation in the general population. A great deal of fundamental information on the biology of the human brain can be discovered from efforts such as ENIGMA, irrespective of whether it has a direct relevance to any specific disease.
