Image via Wikipedia Everyone has a birthday right. Its the day you (your infant self) popped into the world and started breathing, right? But what about the day “you” were born – that is – “you” in the more philosophical, Jungian, spiritual, social, etc. kind of a way when you became aware of being in [...]
Posts Tagged ‘schizophrenia’
RARB says I was born when my late born striosomal cells were born
Posted in Basal Ganglia, RARB, Striatum, tagged Ann Graybiel, Basal Ganglia, Brain, Cognition, Development, Dopamine, Mental health, Neural network, Psychology, schizophrenia, self, self awareness, Striatum on February 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Semaphorins integrate the sweetness and development of our cortical 6-layer cake
Posted in RLN, SEMA(1-7), tagged Brain, cerebral cortex, Circuitry, Cognition, Development, economics, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Mental disorder, Mental health, Messenger RNA, neural migration, Neuron, Prefrontal cortex, schizophrenia, Stem cell, University of Pittsburgh on January 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia For a great many reasons, research on mental illness is focused on the frontal cortex. Its just a small part of the brain, and certainly, many things can go wrong in other places during brain/cognitive development, but, it remains a robust finding, that when the frontal cortex is not working well, individuals [...]
Epigenetics and cognitive development – quick sketch overview
Posted in BDNF, MECP2, tagged Art, autism, Development, Epigenetics, Gene expression, schizophrenia, synaptogenesis, Stress, Anxiety, meme-art, Gene, Cognition, Rett Syndrome, MECP2, Transcription, cognitive development on December 16, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Some quick sketches that might help put the fast-growing epigenetics and cognitive development literature into context. Visit the University of Utah’s Epigenetics training site for more background! The genome is just the A,G,T,C bases that encode proteins and other mRNA molecules. The “epi”genome are various modification to the DNA – such as methylation (at C [...]
Reciprocal genetics of autism vs. schizophrenia
Posted in Chromosome structural variants, Intronic or repetitive sequences, tagged autism, Autism spectrum, Cognition, Genetic testing, Mental disorder, Mental health, Neural development, Neurodevelopmental, schizophrenia on December 7, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The recent paper, “Comparative genomics of autism and schizophrenia” by Bernard Crespi and colleagues provides a very exciting take on how genetic data can be mined to understand cognitive development and mental illness. Looking at genetic association data for autism and schizophrenia, the authors point out that 4 loci are associated with both schizophrenia and [...]
Video library of mental illness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Depression, Major depressive disorder, Mental disorder, Mental health, Psychology, schizophrenia, symptoms, videos on November 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia pointer to symptommedia.org – fantastic video resource of specific symptoms of mental illness. “The intention of these clips are to be used in the classroom setting as visual compliments to the written description of symptoms for psychological phenomena found in the DSM handbook.”
Genetic causes and non-genetic consequences of schizophrenia play out within 2mm of neocortex
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Archives of General Psychiatry, Brain, cerebral cortex, Development, Frontal lobe, Genetics, Mental disorder, Mental health, neocortex, Neuron, schizophrenia, synapse, synaptogenesis on November 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image by Biking Nikon PDX via Flickr One of the difficult aspects of understanding mental illness, is separating the real causes of the illness from what might be secondary or tertiary consequences of having the illness. If you think about a car whose engine is not running normally, there may be many observable things going [...]
Krill-sized genetic risk factors caught with fine NRG1 netting
Posted in NRG1, tagged Brain, Development, Genetic testing, Mental health, schizophrenia, Genome-wide association study, Genetic marker on November 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia The neuregulin-1 (NRG1) gene is widely known as one of the most well-replicated genetic risk factors for schizophrenia. Converging evidence shows that it is associated with schizophrenia at the gene expression and mouse model levels which are consistent with its molecular functions in neural development. However, in several recent genome-wide association studies [...]
Development of autism vs. schizophrenia depends on a mere 600 kilobases of DNA on chromosome 16
Posted in Chromosome structural variants, tagged autism, Bipolar disorder, Brain, Development, DNA, Gene expression, Mental disorder, Mental health, Mood, schizophrenia on October 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Image via Wikipedia File this story under “the more you know, the more you don’t know” or simply under “WTF!“ The new paper, “Microduplications of 16p11.2 are associated with schizophrenia” [doi:10.1038/ng.474] reveals that a short stretch of DNA on chromosome 16p11.2 is – very rarely – duplicated and – more rarely – deleted. In an [...]
Interview with Dan Weinberger, M.D. on KCNH2 and schizophrenia
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Development, evolution, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Genetic testing, Mental health, Podcast, schizophrenia on October 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image by Oliver Lavery via Flickr Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D., Chief of the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch and Director of the Genes, Cognition and Psychosis Program, National Institute of Mental Health discusses the background, findings and general issues of genes and mental illness in this brief interview on his paper, “A primate-specific, brain isoform of [...]
Genes to behavior @ HUGO
Posted in 5HTT, MAOA, tagged Mental disorder, schizophrenia, Twin on September 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image by Dollar Bin via Flickr pointer to: download Power Point presentation hosted on the HUGO website entitled, “From the human genome to human behaviour: how far have we travelled?” (both English and Russian text) – by Ian Craig and Nick Yankovsky, Education Council Human Genome Organisation. Covers recent findings on MAOA and 5HTT several [...]
Timing is everything – K+ channel bears the evidence across milliseconds and millenia
Posted in KCNH2, tagged 23andMe, Action potential, Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, Frontal lobe, Gene, Gene expression, Hippocampus, Neuron, schizophrenia, Single-nucleotide polymorphism on August 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
**PODCAST accompanies this post** In the brain, as in other aspects of life, timing is everything. On an intuitive level, its pretty clear, that, since neurons have to work together in widely distributed networks, they have a lot of incentive to talk to each other in a rhythmic, organized way. Think of a choir that [...]
Animal model reveals timely insights into immuno-genetic risk of schizophrenia
Posted in Frontal cortex, Hippocampus, MHC loci, tagged Development, Epigenetics, Frontal lobe, schizophrenia on August 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Image via Wikipedia Among the various (and few) significant results of recent landmark whole-genome analyses (involving more than 54,000 participants) on schizophrenia (covered here and here), there was really just one consistent result – linkage to the 6p21-22 region containing the immunological MHC loci. While there has been some despair among professional gene hunters, one [...]
echoblog: Are there more genes associated with schizophrenia than there are genes (in the human genome)?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Biology, deCODE Genetics, Eukaryotic, Genetic testing, Genetics, Genome, Nature, schizophrenia on August 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image by PhotoJonny via Flickr pointer to: Daniel MacArthur and Neil Walker’s (@ Genetic Future bog) in-depth coverage of various critiques on the recent back-to-back-to-back Nature magazine trifecta (covered here) on GWAS results for schizophrenia. Rough going for the global corsortia and a major f**king bummer for folks like myself who have been hoping that [...]
6p21-22 linkage seems to confirm role of immune response in mental illness
Posted in MHC loci, tagged Antigen, Antigen-presenting cell, B cell, Biology, Gene-Environment, Genetics, Immune system, Immunology, Major histocompatibility complex, schizophrenia on August 7, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Image via Wikipedia Its not often that Nature magazine publishes a triple-back-to-back-to-back, so take note if you’re interested in the genetics of mental illness. The 3 papers – [doi:10.1038/nature08185] involving 3,322 individuals with schizophrenia and 3,587 controls, [doi:10.1038/nature08186] 4,999 cases and 15,555 controls and [doi:10.1038/nature08192] 8,008 cases and 19,077 controls – are as massive and [...]
“Imagene” that, Canadian system takes the lead in biomarker-driven mental health
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Genetic testing, Personalized medicine, schizophrenia on July 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image by Getty Images via Daylife While often the object of scorn from its capitalistic southern neighbor, the Canada Foundation for Innovation has just awarded Dr. David Kennedy a large research grant to deploy both neuroimaging and genetic markers in the development of personalised treatment for schizophrenia – through a program dubbed “neuroIMAGENE“. Dr. Kennedy [...]
Genetic risk expressed in early regulator of gene expression
Posted in NEUROG1, tagged 23andMe, Mental disorder, schizophrenia on June 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia The basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor, neurogenin-1 is known to regulate neural development and neurite outgrowth. As such, it makes for a particularly interesting point to begin to understand mental illness and its complex developmental origins. The recent paper by Ho et al., “Basic helix–loop–helix transcription factor NEUROG1 and schizophrenia: Effects on illness [...]
Facial expressions did not give away genetic risk for schizophrenia
Posted in Amygdala, DLPFC, Frontal cortex, tagged Emotion, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Mental disorder, schizophrenia, Twin on March 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image by ibiscus27 via Flickr One of the difficulties in understanding mental illness is that so many aspects of mental life can go awry – and its a challenge to understand what abnormalities are directly linked to causes and what abnormalities might be consequences or later ripples in a chain reaction of neural breakdown. Ideally, [...]
BOLD new inquiry on genetic basis of mental disability
Posted in ARHGAP18, Actin, CDC34, DLPFC, GTPase, RSRC1, TGF-alpha, tagged ARHGAP18, CDC34, DLPFC, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Mental disorder, Mental health, RHO, RSRC1, schizophrenia, Stem cell, TGFa on February 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia One of the mental functions many of us take for granted is memory – that is – until we’re at the grocery store. If you’re like me, you dart out of the house confident that you don’t need a list since you’re just going to “pick up a few things” – only [...]
Cytogenetic arrays to the clinic – stat !
Posted in Chromosome structural variants, tagged autism, Genetic testing, Personalized medicine, schizophrenia on August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia Doctor David Ledbetter gives an eloquent editorial overview in his piece, “Cytogenetic Technology: Genotype and Phenotype” [doi: 10.1056/NEJMe0806570] on the renaissance underway in the field of medical cytogenetics. The use of high density arrays for genome-wide copy number variation has identified a slew of new sites showing recurrent microdeletion that are reliably [...]
rs1044396 mediates effects of nicotine self-medication
Posted in CHRNA4, acetylcholine, tagged 23andMe, Addiction, Nicotine, schizophrenia on June 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It has been reported that cigarettes can impart some calm and clarity from racing thoughts and mental fog. Patients with schizophrenia, who often experience cognitive disorganization, are 2-4 times more likely than the general population to smoke, and also seem to prefer stronger brands of cigarettes. This is not surprising since nicotine can raise levels [...]
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