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Transforming the understanding
and treatment of mental illnesses.

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Research Projects

HBCC collaborates with the investigators within and outside NIH, who study the causes and mechanisms of mental disorders in postmortem human brain. Examples of such projects include:

  • Whole genome expression and DNA methylation patterns in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of non-psychiatric control subjects http://braincloud.jhmi.edu/downloads.htm ,
  • Whole genome expression in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and dura in several hundred individuals with mental disorders and control subjects using microarray expression studies dbGAP accession ID: phs000979.v1.p1.
  • Gene expression patterns  and associations with genetic variants using RNA and whole genome sequencing of dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices in several hundred subjects with mental disorders and control individuals.
  • Cis-regulatory epigenome mapping of the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices of subjects with schizophrenia and controls from the fluorescence-activated cell sorted (FACS) neuronal and non-neuronal populations using chromatin immunoprecipitation   (ChIP) with massively parallel DNA sequencing   (Chipseq).
  • Comprehensive identification of active gene regulatory elements in the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices of subjects with schizophrenia and controls from sorted (FACS) neuronal and non-neuronal cells using an Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin with high throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq), a method for mapping chromatin accessibility genome-wide.
  • Alterations of miRNA expression in pyramidal and astrocyte cell populations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (two hundred controls and schizophrenia subjects).
  • Mapping bioactive lipids and RNA expression by RNA-sequencing in migraine headaches using trigeminal ganglia, blood, blood vessels and dura tissues
  • Mapping gene expression by RNA-sequencing in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex of subjects with depression who committed suicide and in bipolar disorder