Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

The Effects Of Physical Function And Genetics On Cognition And Blood Biomarkers In Individuals At-Risk For Alzheimer’S Disease And Related Dementias, Joshua Louis Gills

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) rates are expected to triple by the year 2050. Early detection and specific mitigation efforts are warranted to blunt the alarming rate. Physical function (PF) declines with age, but higher physical function is associated with better cognitive functioning in middle-to- older age individuals. Moreover, greater physical activity (PA) is associated with better global cognition; however, Apoliporotein e4 carriers may not gain the same benefits with exercise. Additionally, plasma phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) has been identified as a novel diagnostic ADRD biomarker which needs further research to examine associations with risk factors. Therefore, the aims …

Examination Of Common And Rare Variant Genetic Architecture Of Psychiatric Disorders, Mohammad Ahangari

Theses and Dissertations

Psychiatric disorders are often heterogenous in their manifestation and genome-wide association studies have identified many common risk variants involved in their polygenic architectures with varying degrees of pleiotropy. In recent years, large-scale biobanks have also begun sequencing the genome of their participants to elucidate the role of rare risk variation in the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes, including psychiatric traits. This dissertation sought to better understand the role of both common and rare risk variation in the genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders with a particular focus on schizophrenia and alcohol problems. In the first three analyses, we focused on characterizing …

The Influence Of Stressful Life Events On The Development Of Type 2 Diabetes, Joshua Minks

Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between distress and the development of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the presence of established risk factors. Distress secondary to mental health disparities, stressful life events, and work conditions has been shown to promote insulin resistance and the development of T2DM.

Subjects (N=79) diagnosed with T2DM within the previous six months were recruited from SSM Health Centers and VA Medical Centers in the greater St. Louis area. They completed the Recent Life Changes Questionnaire, ENRICHD Social Support Instrument, and a demographic survey and analyses were conducted to determine differences between the veteran …

Molecular Brain Adaptations To Ethanol: Role Of Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3 Beta In The Transition To Excessive Consumption, Andrew D. Van Der Vaart

Theses and Dissertations

Alcoholism is a complex neuropsychiatric disease that is characterized by compulsive alcohol use and intensifying cravings and withdrawals, often culminating in physiologic dependency. Fundamental alterations in brain chemistry underlie the transition from initial ethanol exposure to repetitive excessive use. Key mediators of this adaptation include changes in gene expression and signal transduction. Here we investigated gene expression pathways in prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens following acute or chronic ethanol treatment, to identify genes with potentially conserved involvement in the long-term response of the corticolimbic system to repeated ethanol exposure. We investigated Gsk3b, which encodes glycogen synthase kinase 3-beta, as a …

Symptoms Of Major Depression: Their Stability, Familiality, And Prediction By Genetic, Temperamental, And Childhood Environmental Risk Factors, Kenneth S. Kendler, Steven H. Aggen

Psychiatry Publications

Background: Psychiatry has long sought to develop biological diagnostic subtypes based on symptomatic differences. This effort assumes that symptoms reflect, with good fidelity, underlying etiological processes. We address this question for major depression (MD).

Methods: We examine, in twins from a population-based registry, similarity in symptom endorsement in individuals meeting criteria for last-year MD at separate interview waves and in concordant twin pairs. Among individuals with MD, we explore the impact of genetic-temperamental and child adversity risk factors on individual reported symptoms. Aggregated criteria do not separate insomnia from hypersomnia, weight gain from loss, etc. while disaggregated criteria do.

Results: …

The Dual Faces Of Misery, Arden Moscati

Theses and Dissertations

Major Depression (MD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are psychiatric disorders that arise from dysfunction of the core human capacities for emotion. Sapience is inextricably bound up with the potential for feelings of regret, worry and concern. When these emotions lead to clinically significant impairment or distress, they may result in one or both of the disorders of MD and GAD. The occurrence of MD and GAD in the same person, known as comorbidity, is remarkably high; substantially higher than would be expected by chance.

MD and GAD have been studied since the mid-20^th century, resulting in a substantial …

Large Scale Genetic Research On Neuropsychiatric Disorders In African Populations Is Needed, Shareefa Dalvie, Nastassja Koen, Laramie Duncan, Catherine Abbo, Dickens Akena, Lukoye Atwoli, Bonginkosi Chiliza, Kirsten A. Donald, Eugene Kinyanda, Christine Lochner

Internal Medicine, East Africa

In recent years there have been significant insights into the complex aetiologies of neurodevelopmental brain disorders. For example, neuropsychiatric genetics has achieved success with the identification of 108 loci for schizophrenia (Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, 2014). Furthermore, meta-analyses of genomewide association study (GWAS) results encompassing thousands of samples have been completed for other psychiatric disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism

Maternal Psychiatric Disease And Epigenetic Evidence Suggest A Common Biology For Poor Fetal Growth, Timothy H. Ciesielski, Carmen J. Marsit, Scott M. Williams

Dartmouth Scholarship

We sought to identify and characterize predictors of poor fetal growth among variables extracted from perinatal medical records to gain insight into potential etiologic mechanisms. In this process we reevaluated a previously observed association between poor fetal growth and maternal psychiatric disease. We evaluated 449 deliveries of >36 weeks gestation that occurred between 9/2008 and 9/2010 at the Women and Infants Hospital in Providence Rhode Island. This study group was oversampled for Small-for-Gestational-Age (SGA) infants and excluded Large-for-Gestational-Age (LGA) infants. We assessed the associations between recorded clinical variables and impaired fetal growth: SGA or Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) diagnosis. After …

Identifying Functional Variation In Schizophrenia Gwas Loci By Pooled Sequencing, Erik Loken

Theses and Dissertations

Schizophrenia demonstrates high heritability in part accounted for by common simple nucleotide variants (SNV), rare copy number variants (CNV) and, most recently, rare SNVs Although heritability explained by rare SNVs and CNVs is small compared to that explained by common SNVs, rare SNVs in functional sequences may identify specific disease mechanisms. However, current exome methods do not capture a large proportion of potentially functional bases where rare variation may impact disease risk: as much as two-thirds of conserved sequences lie outside the exome in non-coding regions of cross-species evolutionary constraint. We reasoned that the candidate loci from the Psychiatric Genomics …

Place Conditioning: What Does It Add To Our Understanding Of Ethanol Reward ?, Fred O. Risinger, Christopher L. Cunningham, Rick A. Bevins, Frank A. Holloway

Rick A. Bevins

This article describes the proceedings of a symposium at the 2001 RSA annual meeting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The cochairs were Fred O. Risinger and Christopher L. Cunningham. Presentations were as follows: (1) Place conditioning: understanding the motivational impact of stimuli, by Rick A. Bevins; (2) Role of historical factors in ethanol place conditioning, by Frank A. Holloway; (3) Ethanol place conditioning in mice: genetic and environmental infl uences, by Christopher L. Cunningham; and (4) Utilization of place conditioning for understanding the neuropharmacology of the rewarding effects of ethanol, by Fred O. Risinger.

Place Conditioning: What Does It Add To Our Understanding Of Ethanol Reward ?, Fred O. Risinger, Christopher L. Cunningham, Rick A. Bevins, Frank A. Holloway

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This article describes the proceedings of a symposium at the 2001 RSA annual meeting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The cochairs were Fred O. Risinger and Christopher L. Cunningham. Presentations were as follows: (1) Place conditioning: understanding the motivational impact of stimuli, by Rick A. Bevins; (2) Role of historical factors in ethanol place conditioning, by Frank A. Holloway; (3) Ethanol place conditioning in mice: genetic and environmental infl uences, by Christopher L. Cunningham; and (4) Utilization of place conditioning for understanding the neuropharmacology of the rewarding effects of ethanol, by Fred O. Risinger.