Advanced gene sequencing has found a single genetic mutation essential for a brain disorder that has been plaguing Turkish families for centuries.

Researchers from the Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Yale, the University of California, San Diego, and Houston's Baylor College of Medicine teamed up to conduct the research, which was published in Cell.

After years of study, scientists have found a gene essential to neurons called CLP1, and children with the rare disorder inherit two defective copies.