Publications by authors named "Herms S"

Procedural learning and automatization have widely been studied in behavioral psychology and typically involves a rapid improvement, followed by a plateau in performance throughout repeated training. More recently, brain imaging studies have implicated frontal-striatal brain circuits in skill learning. However, it is largely unknown whether frontal-striatal activation during skill learning and behavioral changes follow a similar learning curve pattern.

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As a neurodevelopmental multifactorial disorder whose prevalence has been increasing worldwide, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is considered a public health concern. Methylphenidate (MPH) is the drug of choice for ADHD; however, not all patients respond fully to this treatment. Therefore, exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in ADHD and potential novel therapeutic targets is crucial.

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  • * A genome-wide association meta-analysis of nearly 122,000 ANX cases revealed 58 significant genetic variants and 66 related genes, with many of these findings replicated in a larger independent sample.
  • * The findings indicate a substantial genetic overlap between ANX and other conditions like depression, emphasizing GABAergic signaling as a key mechanism, thereby enhancing our understanding of the genetic basis of ANX for future research.
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Aim: We investigated the predictive value of polygenic risk scores (PRS) derived from the schizophrenia GWAS (Trubetskoy et al., 2022) (SCZ3) for phenotypic traits of bipolar disorder type-I (BP-I) in 1878 BP-I cases and 2751 controls from Romania and UK.

Methods: We used PRSice-v2.

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  • Lithium is the primary treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), but how it works and predicts outcomes is not fully understood.
  • A previous study identified key cellular pathways linked to lithium response, including focal adhesion and PI3K-Akt signaling.
  • In this new study, researchers confirmed these pathways in a larger group of 2039 patients but found no connection with the extracellular matrix, suggesting that issues with neuronal growth signaling may impact lithium effectiveness.
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  • Angioedema is a serious reaction linked to ACE inhibitors, and its causes include genetic and non-genetic factors; recent studies have begun to uncover genetic risk factors but not the full underlying mechanisms.!* -
  • Researchers analyzed data from over 1,000 European patients, discovering three significant genetic risk loci associated with ACEi-induced angioedema, one of which has not been previously noted.!* -
  • The findings underscored the role of bradykinin signaling and coagulation pathways while suggesting new genetic candidates involved in angioedema, highlighting similar genetic effects in both European and African-American patients.!*
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Rationale: In bipolar disorder (BD), immunological factors play a role in the pathogenesis and treatment of the illness. Studies showed the potential link between Abelson Helper Integration Site 1 (AHI1) protein, behavioural changes and innate immunity regulation. An immunomodulatory effect was suggested for lithium, a mood stabilizer used in BD treatment.

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Lithium is the gold standard treatment for bipolar disorder (BD). However, its mechanism of action is incompletely understood, and prediction of treatment outcomes is limited. In our previous multi-omics study of the Pharmacogenomics of Bipolar Disorder (PGBD) sample combining transcriptomic and genomic data, we found that focal adhesion, the extracellular matrix (ECM), and PI3K-Akt signaling networks were associated with response to lithium.

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  • Increasing evidence suggests that epigenetic changes, particularly DNA methylation of the POMC gene, can increase the risk of obesity, with a notable 1.4-fold risk linked to specific hypermethylation patterns.
  • A human embryonic stem cell model was used to study how these methylation states are established early in development, showing that reduced DNA methylation is associated with the formation of hypothalamic neurons that express the POMC gene.
  • Treatment with an MC4R agonist in individuals with hypermethylation resulted in an average body weight reduction of about 4.66% over several months, highlighting a potential therapeutic approach for addressing this epigenetic obesity risk variant.
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  • * Researchers examined 4,925 immune-related genes and their association with lithium treatment response and clinical features in a large bipolar patient sample.
  • * Findings indicate a few genetic associations with treatment response and clinical characteristics, revealing potential biomarkers, but overall support a weak connection between immune factors and bipolar disorder at a genetic level.
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Lithium is regarded as the first-line treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), a severe and disabling mental health disorder that affects about 1% of the population worldwide. Nevertheless, lithium is not consistently effective, with only 30% of patients showing a favorable response to treatment. To provide personalized treatment options for bipolar patients, it is essential to identify prediction biomarkers such as polygenic scores.

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Neurotransmitter receptors are key molecules in signal transmission, their alterations are associated with brain dysfunction. Relationships between receptors and their corresponding genes are poorly understood, especially in humans. We combined in vitro receptor autoradiography and RNA sequencing to quantify, in the same tissue samples (7 subjects), the densities of 14 receptors and expression levels of their corresponding 43 genes in the Cornu Ammonis (CA) and dentate gyrus (DG) of human hippocampus.

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  • Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects over 5% of children and adolescents globally, with rising prevalence rates over recent decades.
  • *The causes of ADHD are believed to involve a combination of genetic (polygenic) and environmental factors, although the specific molecular mechanisms aren't completely understood.
  • *This study focuses on creating cell lines from ADHD patients and healthy controls using Sendai virus, which will assist in exploring ADHD at molecular and cellular levels to identify potential treatment strategies and predictive markers.
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Lithium is regarded as the first-line treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), a severe and disabling mental disorder that affects about 1% of the population worldwide. Nevertheless, lithium is not consistently effective, with only 30% of patients showing a favorable response to treatment. To provide personalized treatment options for bipolar patients, it is essential to identify prediction biomarkers such as polygenic scores.

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  • Major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD), and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SZ) share genetic and phenotypic characteristics, but the exact genetic influences on their overlapping symptoms are not well understood.
  • This study analyzed genetic contributions to specific symptom dimensions in a large sample of patients with MDD, BD, or SZ, revealing some associations between polygenic risk scores (PRS) and symptoms like "Positive formal thought disorder" and "Paranoid-hallucinatory syndrome."
  • However, no significant genetic associations were found for MDD, and the overall findings suggest that these psychiatric symptoms may be influenced by polygenic factors, though further research with larger samples is needed to clarify the genetic underpinnings.
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Response to lithium varies widely between individuals with bipolar disorder (BD). Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) can uncover pharmacogenomics effects and may help predict drug response. Patients ( = 2,510) with BD were assessed for long-term lithium response in the Consortium on Lithium Genetics using the Retrospective Criteria of Long-Term Treatment Response in Research Subjects with Bipolar Disorder score.

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Bipolar disorder (BD) is a complex mood disorder with a strong genetic component. Recent studies suggest that microRNAs contribute to psychiatric disorder development. In BD, specific candidate microRNAs have been implicated, in particular miR-137, miR-499a, miR-708, miR-1908 and miR-2113.

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Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an immunomodulatory treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). Despite its wide clinical use, the mechanisms underlying clinical response are not understood. This study aimed to reveal immune markers of therapeutic response to DMF treatment in MS.

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Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common sleep-related movement disorder in populations of European descent and disease risk is strongly influenced by genetic factors. Common variants have been assessed extensively in several genome-wide association studies, but the contribution of rarer genetic variation has not been investigated at this scale. We therefore genotyped a case-control set of 9246 individuals for mainly rare and low frequency exonic variants using the Illumina ExomeChip.

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  • * Researchers discovered 287 genomic regions associated with schizophrenia, emphasizing genes specifically active in excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and identified 120 key genes potentially responsible for these associations.
  • * The findings highlight important biological processes related to neuronal function, suggesting overlaps between common and rare genetic variants in both schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders, ultimately aiding future research on these conditions.
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Background: Response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder is associated with clinical and transdiagnostic genetic factors. The predictive combination of these variables might help clinicians better predict which patients will respond to lithium treatment.

Aims: To use a combination of transdiagnostic genetic and clinical factors to predict lithium response in patients with bipolar disorder.

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