QBI Neuroscience Seminar: “Emerging themes in the genetics of bipolar disorder”

Event Details

Date:

Wednesday, 27 March 2019 - Wednesday, 27 March 2019

Time:

11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Room:

QBI Level 7 Auditorium

UQ Location:

Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)

URL:

http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Professor John Nurnberger
Professor of Psychiatry,Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis,Indiana, USA

Title: “Emerging themes in the genetics of bipolar disorder”

Abstract: One of the consistent findings in genomic studies of bipolar disorder is a role for calcium channel genes. This presentation will review that evidence and consider its implications, based on data from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, whole genome sequencing of families from the Bipolar Genome Study and other sources. It will furthermore describe the development of cellular models of bipolar disorder using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and also neuronal cell lines derived from iPSCs; calcium channel mechanisms are supported in those cellular models. Dr. Nurnberger will describe normal calcium channel function and summarize evidence for calcium channel involvement in BD, focusing particularly on common gene variants studied in genome-wide association studies. He will also review prior physiologic and pharmacological evidence for a role of calcium mechanisms in BD.
In addition other mechanisms are suggested in recent genomic and gene expression studies and these data will be reviewed as well.