Our findings indicate the neuronal regulation of motivated behaviours such as feeding and sleep, alongside the regulation of pituitary function, as functional hotspots for imprinting. Moreover, the unbiased approach, with each analysis informed by the findings of the previous level, permits highly informed inferences about the functions on which imprinted gene expression converges. These analyses provide the first robust assessment of the neural systems on which imprinted genes converge. Finally, using datasets focusing on these regions of enrichment, we identified hypothalamic neuroendocrine populations and the monoaminergic hindbrain neurons as specific hotspots of imprinted gene expression. We then examined brain-wide datasets to test enrichment within distinct brain regions and neuron subpopulations and demonstrated over-representation of imprinted genes in the hypothalamus, ventral midbrain, pons and medulla. We established that imprinted genes are indeed over-represented in the adult brain, and in neurons particularly compared to other brain cell-types. Using thirteen single-cell RNA sequencing datasets we systematically investigated imprinted gene over-representation at the organ, brain region, and cell-specific levels. Although a number of imprinted genes are known to be highly expressed in the brain, and in certain brain regions in particular, whether they are truly over-represented in the brain has never been formally tested.
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