Posts Tagged 'research'

Drs. Elizabeth Prom-Wormley and Hermine Maes Receive Funding for Their Resist! Project

Drs.Elizabeth Prom-Wormley and Hermine Maes recently received funding for their Resist! Project (R01 DA054313). The goal of this project is to index individual resistance to psychoactive substance use (SU) during adolescence and use the indices to identify factors influencing resistance into early middle adulthood, with a special focus on potentially modifiable factors.

We will also use a concept mapping approach to identify novel factors and a genetically-informed study design to account for genetic confounding. This project addresses ...

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Dr. Roberson-Nay Receives $275K NIMH R21 Funded Research Grant

Roxann Roberson-Nay, Ph.D. received a two year, $275K NIMH R21 grant for her “Quantification and Characterization of Bulk and L1CAM-Enriched Exosomal MicroRNA Cargo in Healthy Young People” research study.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-bound sacs that transport bioactive materials like proteins, DNA, and RNA. EVs are released from all (or nearly all) tissues into the bloodstream as a normal part of physiology. Because EVs easily cross the blood-brain-barrier, analyzing cell surface markers and biological cargo may enable researchers to ...

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VCU researchers and international partners first to identify shared risk genes for anxiety disorders

In the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, researchers have successfully identified two novel genetic variants that could increase risk for the five primary anxiety disorders. The findings are the result of an international collaboration among 34 researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University and throughout academic institutions in the United States, Europe and Australia.

The international research team looked at genetic risk factors that are common across the five primary anxiety disorders identified in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic ...

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Student researches ‘subtle biological differences’ of addiction

Binge drinking is a growing problem in the United States, but are all problem drinkers the same? That is a question Virginia Commonwealth University student Megan Cooke hopes to answer.

Cooke has been interested in alcohol dependence and alcohol use behavior since receiving a postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award to work at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She quickly realized the importance of genetic influences in the development of addiction — “Ignoring [the genetics] would be ignoring a ...

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Females more at genetic risk for developing insomnia than males, VCU study suggests

Genes may contribute more to the development of insomnia symptoms in females than in males, according to a new study led by a Virginia Commonwealth University graduate student.

Drawing on pre-existing data from the Virginia Adult Twin Studies of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders (VATSPSUD), a large data set collected by VCU psychiatry professor Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., Mackenzie Lind found evidence that the heritability of insomnia could be higher for females than it is for males, suggesting that genes influence ...

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VCU researchers and international partners are first to identify risk genes for clinical depression

For the first time in scientific history, researchers have identified specific genetic clues to the underlying etiology of clinical depression. The findings are the result of an international collaboration among researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Oxford and throughout China to localize risk genes for major depressive disorder.

While prior studies have failed to identify replicated evidence for molecular genetic markers that predispose to risk for the disease, the international research team, in which VCU’s Virginia Institute for Psychiatric ...

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