rs3750904
Neanderthal: pain sensitivity, D1908G
What this position does
Neanderthals carried three changes in the sodium channel that carries pain signals. People who inherited them report more pain, and in laboratory testing have a lower threshold for mechanical pain. The variants are essentially absent in Europeans and common in Latin American populations.
What each result means
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies of the effect version TT | Not inherited Neither copy carries this Neanderthal change. |
| One copy CT | Inherited from one parent One copy, associated with somewhat greater pain sensitivity. The effects of the three variants add up. |
| Two copies CC | Inherited from both parents Two copies, associated with the greatest effect on pain threshold of the three. |
How common each version is
| Ancestry group | C (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 0.3% | |
| American | 26.2% | |
| East Asian | 13.6% | |
| European | 0.0% | |
| South Asian | 0.5% |
1000 Genomes Project phase 3, via Ensembl, retrieved 2026-09-23. These groupings are coarse and flatten a great deal of internal diversity, particularly within Africa. A variant being common somewhere tells you where a piece of your ancestry probably comes from, and nothing else.
How many people carry each result
| Ancestry group | TT | CT | CC |
|---|---|---|---|
| African | 657 / 661 | 4 / 661 | 0 / 661 |
| European | 503 / 503 | 0 / 503 | 0 / 503 |
| East Asian | 381 / 504 | 109 / 504 | 14 / 504 |
| South Asian | 484 / 489 | 5 / 489 | 0 / 489 |
| American | 202 / 347 | 108 / 347 | 37 / 347 |
Counts of people, not modelled frequencies: every one of the 2,504 individuals sequenced by the 1000 Genomes Project phase 3, tallied by the genotype they carry. Deriving these from allele frequencies instead would assume random mating inside each group and undercount the homozygotes.
How to find out which you have
If you have taken a test with 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA, TellMeGen or Living DNA, this position is very likely already in the raw data file they gave you. You do not need another test.
One thing to watch if you look it up by hand: testing companies report some positions from one DNA strand and some from the other, and the file does not say which. Read the letters as they appear and you will get the opposite of the truth for some positions. Sequencings resolves that automatically.
Source
Coordinates and allele pair verified against Ensembl GRCh37. Direction of effect verified against VEP protein consequences or 1000 Genomes population frequency. Category: Archaic DNA.
Related
- rs4369876 — Neanderthal: pain sensitivity, V991L
- rs12478318 — Neanderthal: pain sensitivity, M932L
Where this fits
Common questions
What is rs3750904?
rs3750904 is a position in the SCN9A gene on chromosome 2. Neanderthals carried three changes in the sodium channel that carries pain signals. People who inherited them report more pain, and in laboratory testing have a lower threshold for mechanical pain. The variants are essentially absent in Europeans and common in Latin American populations.
What does it mean if I have CC at rs3750904?
Inherited from both parents. Two copies, associated with the greatest effect on pain threshold of the three.
What does it mean if I have TT at rs3750904?
Not inherited. Neither copy carries this Neanderthal change.
How do I find out my rs3750904 genotype?
If you have taken a home DNA test, this position is very likely in the raw data file you were given. Sequencings reads that file in your browser without uploading it, and resolves which DNA strand each position was reported from, which is the step most manual lookups get wrong.
This is reference information, not medical advice, and not a diagnosis. See the medical disclaimer. Category: Archaic DNA.