Drs. Amelie Baud and Sandra Sanchez-Roige present at WCPG

Abraham Palmer November 2, 2019 Talks & Conferences

Drs. Amelie Baud and Sandra Sanchez-Roige presented at the 2019 World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics in Los Angeles, CA earlier this week.

Dr. Baud presented a talk entitled “Genetic effects from the social environment” in which she presented evidence that mouse and rat behaviours relevant to psychiatric disorders can be affected not only by the animal’s own genes but also by genes of cage mates. She also illustrated how such “indirect genetic effects” can be leveraged to dissect the mechanisms of social effects, more precisely to identify traits of social partners that influence a behaviour of interest. These results will help us refine the way we use laboratory mice and rats as model organisms and may, ultimately, help us manage social interactions towards better health in humans.

Dr. Sanchez-Roige presented a talk titled “Alcohol use and misuse have a different genetic basis”, which showed the importance of ascertainment and phenotyping characteristics for genetic studies of alcohol use disorders. She showed how the genetic liability to problematic alcohol use is more strongly genetically correlated to alcohol use disorders than the mere genetic liability to consume alcohol. She also presented some evidence that suggested that the frequency of alcohol use also shows a different genetic basis than the amount of alcohol consumed, including patterns of binge drinking.