Publications by authors named "D Hucks"
Article Synopsis
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects about 1% of people and has a strong genetic component, but previous studies have not fully explained its genetic causes or biological mechanisms.
- A large genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyzed data from over 53,000 OCD cases and over 2 million control participants, identifying 30 significant genetic markers related to OCD and suggesting a 6.7% heritability from SNPs.
- The research also found 249 candidate risk genes linked to OCD, particularly in specific brain regions, and showed genetic correlations with various psychiatric disorders, laying the groundwork for further studies and potential treatments.
Article Synopsis
- The study focuses on postpartum depression (PPD), a hereditary form of major depressive disorder, using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to explore its genetic basis across various populations.
- It analyzed data from 18,770 PPD cases and 58,461 controls, finding no single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that met genome-wide significance, though it highlighted significant genetic correlations with other mental health conditions.
- The findings suggest that PPD is polygenic and heritable, potentially involving unique genetic factors despite its close relationship with major depressive disorder and implicate specific brain neurons associated with its treatment.
Identifying genetic risk factors for highly heterogeneous disorders like epilepsy remains challenging. Here, we present the largest whole-exome sequencing study of epilepsy to date, with >54,000 human exomes, comprising 20,979 deeply phenotyped patients from multiple genetic ancestry groups with diverse epilepsy subtypes and 33,444 controls, to investigate rare variants that confer disease risk. These analyses implicate seven individual genes, three gene sets, and four copy number variants at exome-wide significance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe electronic health record (EHR) provides valuable data for understanding physical and mental health conditions in autism. We developed an approach to identify charts of autistic young adults, retrieved from our institution's de-identified EHR database. Clinical notes within two cohorts were identified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective/background: Sleep problems are common in people on the autism spectrum. This study reviews one detailed approach to querying the electronic health record (EHR) in a large tertiary care center.
Patients/methods: We developed methods for identifying people on the autism spectrum and defined their sleep problems using the key words, "sleep" or "melatonin", or International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes.