Name Eneda Pjetri
Department Neuroscience and Pharmacology
Section Neurobiology of behaviour
Function PhD- student
E-mail:
e.pjetri@umcutrecht.nl Telephone number: +31 88 75 688 45
Supervisor Dr. M.J.H Kas & Prof. Dr. B. Olivier
Title research
Interspecies genetics of eating disorders; of mice and men
Summary research Despite years of searching for biological markers for psychiatric traits, clinical practice is for the most part still based on categorical diagnostic criteria. The current nosological approach neglects the complexity of psychiatric phenotypes and does not necessarily reflect the underlying biological processes. For the majority of psychiatric disorders, the robust identification of susceptibility genes by classical linkage and candidate gene analysis has proven difficult. New technological advances, like the advent of gene chips, has aided this process, but genetic heterogeneity in the population and lack of control over contributing environmental factors limit the search for genetic variants underlying complex behavioral traits. Recent genome-wide association (GWA) studies of memory function (Papassotiropoulos, 2006) and obesity (Herbert, 2006) each identified a single associated polymorphism, but with relatively small effect. These results show that GWA will not be the panacea for completely unraveling the genetic basis of complex disorders and alternative approaches are necessary. Empirical evidence from the few cases where susceptibility genes for psychiatric disorders have already been identified suggested that there is significant overlap between psychiatric diagnoses. If these findings are true, this implies that these genes encode behavioral domains rather than discreet disease susceptibility, thus are amenable to analysis with behavioral animal models. This approach offers the potential to identify functional pathways. This can be achieved by the identification of individual genes through quantitative trait loci mapping and by subsequent global gene expression analysis on transgenic mice. By applying a comprehensive and cost-effective genetic approach that integrates mouse and human genotype-phenotype relationships, this project aims to identify novel genetic loci and associated genetic pathways regulating mouse behavioral traits related to eating disorders.