A5041952486- Genetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals
- Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
- Adipose Tissue and Metabolism
- Receptor Mechanisms and Signaling
- Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Rabbits: Nutrition, Reproduction, Health
- Gene expression and cancer classification
- Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Genetic Syndromes and Imprinting
- Animal Nutrition and Physiology
- Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
- Genetics and Plant Breeding
- Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
2018-2025
University of California, Los Angeles
2021-2024
Obesity is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Despite the success of human genome-wide association studies, specific genes that confer obesity remain largely unknown. The objective this study was to use outbred rats identify loci underlying related morphometric metabolic traits.
Addiction vulnerability is associated with the tendency to attribute incentive salience reward predictive cues. Both addiction and attribution of are influenced by environmental genetic factors. To characterize contributions attribution, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in cohort 1596 heterogeneous stock (HS) rats. Rats underwent Pavlovian conditioned approach task that characterized responses food-associated stimuli ("cues"). Responses ranged from cue-directed...
Adaptive reward-related decision making requires accurate prospective consideration of the specific outcome each option and its current desirability. Often this information must be inferred based on presence predictive environmental events. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) are two key nodes in circuitry supporting such expectations, but very little is known about function direct connections between these regions. Here, male rats, we first anatomically...
The intestinal microbiome influences health and disease. Its composition is affected by host genetics environmental exposures. Understanding genetic effects critical but challenging in humans, due to the difficulty of detecting, mapping interpreting them. To address this, we analysed four cohorts outbred laboratory rats exposed distinct controlled environments. We found that polygenic were consistent across identified three replicated microbiome-associated loci. One involved a...
Genome-wide association studies ( GWAS ) have implicated specific alleles and genes as risk factors for numerous complex traits. However, translating results into biologically therapeutically meaningful discoveries remains extremely challenging. Most identify noncoding regions of the genome, suggesting that differences in gene regulation are major driver trait variability. To better integrate with regulatory polymorphisms, we previously developed PrediXcan (also known “transcriptome-wide...
Abstract Sensitivity to cocaine and its associated stimuli (“cues”) are important factors in the development maintenance of addiction. Rodent studies suggest that this sensitivity is related, part, propensity attribute incentive salience food cues, which, turn, contributes self-administration, cue-induced relapse drug-seeking. Whereas each these traits has established links drug use, relatedness between individual themselves not been well characterized preclinical models. To end, a cue was...
Abstract Organisms must regulate their behavior flexibly in the face of environmental challenges. Failure can lead to a host maladaptive behavioral traits associated with range neuropsychiatric disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and substance use disorders. This dysregulation is influenced by genetic factors. For example, enrichment produces beneficial neurobehavioral effects animal models such The present study determined on measures related regulation...
A vexing observation in genome-wide association studies (GWASs) is that parallel analyses different species may not identify orthologous genes. Here, we demonstrate cross-species translation of GWASs can be greatly improved by an analysis co-localization within molecular networks. Using body mass index (BMI) as example, show the genes associated with BMI humans lack significant agreement those identified rats. However, networks interconnecting these substantial overlap, highlighting common...
Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) analysis and Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have the power to identify variants that capture significant levels of phenotypic variance in complex traits. However, effort time are required select best methods optimize parameters pre-processing steps. Although machine learning approaches been shown greatly assist optimization data processing, applying them QTL GWAS is challenging due complexity large, heterogenous datasets. Here, we describe...
Abstract Addiction vulnerability is associated with the tendency to attribute incentive salience reward predictive cues; both addiction and attribution of are influenced by environmental genetic factors. To characterize contributions attribution, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in cohort 1,645 genetically diverse heterogeneous stock (HS) rats. We tested HS rats Pavlovian conditioned approach task, which characterized individual responses food-associated stimuli (“cues”)....
Abstract Genome-wide association studies typically evaluate the autosomes and sometimes X Chromosome, but seldom consider Y or mitochondrial (MT) Chromosomes. We genotyped MT Chromosomes in heterogeneous stock (HS) rats (Rattus norvegicus), an outbred population created from 8 inbred strains. identified distinct 4 among founders. However, only 2 types of each nonrecombinant chromosome were observed our modern HS rat (generations 81–97). Despite relatively large sample size, there virtually...
Abstract Objective Obesity is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Despite success of human genome wide association studies (GWAS), the specific genes that confer obesity remain largely unknown. The objective this study was to use outbred rats identify loci underlying related morphometric metabolic traits. Methods We measured obesity-relevant traits including body weight, length, mass index, fasting glucose, retroperitoneal, epididymal, parametrial fat pad weight in 3,173 male...
Abstract Sensitivity to cocaine and its associated stimuli (“cues”) are important factors in the development maintenance of addiction. Rodent studies suggest that this sensitivity is related, part, propensity attribute incentive salience food cues, which, turn, contributes self-administration, cue-induced relapse drug-seeking. Whereas each these traits has established links drug use, relatedness between individual themselves not been well characterized preclinical models. To end, a cue was...
Abstract Organisms must regulate their behavior flexibly in the face of environmental challenges. Failure can lead to a host maladaptive behavioral traits associated with range neuropsychiatric disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and substance use disorders. This dysregulation is influenced by genetic factors. For example, enrichment produces beneficial neurobehavioral effects animal models such The present study determined on measures related regulation...
ABSTRACT Adaptive reward-related decision making requires accurate prospective consideration of the specific outcome each option and its current desirability. Often this information must be inferred based on presence predictive environmental events. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) are two key nodes in circuitry supporting such expectations, but very little is known about function direct connections between these regions. Here, male rats, we first...
ABSTRACT To make adaptive decisions, we build an internal model of the associative relationships in environment and use it to predictions inferences about specific available outcomes. Detailed, identity-specific cue-reward memories are a core feature such cognitive maps. Here used fiber photometry, cell-type pathway-specific optogenetic manipulation, Pavlovian conditioning, decision-making tests male female rats, reveal that ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA DA ) projections basolateral...
Abstract Genome-wide association studies ( GWAS ) have implicated specific alleles and genes as risk factors for numerous complex traits. However, translating results into biologically therapeutically meaningful discoveries remains extremely challenging. Most identify noncoding regions of the genome, suggesting that differences in gene regulation are major driver trait variability. To better integrate with regulatory polymorphisms, we previously developed PrediXcan (also known...
Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) analysis and Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have the power to identify variants that capture significant levels of phenotypic variance in complex traits. However, effort time are required select best methods optimize parameters pre-processing steps. Although machine learning approaches been shown greatly assist optimization data processing, applying them QTL GWAS is challenging due complexity large, heterogenous datasets. Here, we describe...
Abstract Power analyses are often used to determine the number of animals required for a genome wide association analysis (GWAS). These typically intended estimate sample size needed at least one locus exceed genome-wide significance threshold. A related question that is less commonly considered significant loci will be discovered with given size. We simulations based on real dataset consisted 3,173 male and female adult N/NIH heterogeneous stock (HS) rats explore relationship between...
Abstract Power analyses are often used to determine the number of animals required for a genome-wide association study (GWAS). These typically intended estimate sample size needed at least 1 locus exceed significance threshold. A related question that is less commonly considered significant loci will be discovered with given size. We simulations based on real data set consisted 3,173 male and female adult N/NIH heterogeneous stock rats explore relationship between discovered. Our examined...