The new NIDA U01 grant, “Characterization of Tandem Repeat and Structural Variants Contributing to Addictive Behaviors in Mice and Rats”, was awarded to MPI’s: Drs. Abraham Palmer, Melissa Gymrek and Jonatahn Sebat. This grant serves to combine the complementary expertise of the MPI’s to produce a large-scale resource for analyzing the effects of complex variation on mouse and rat phenotypes.

The article, “Multivariate genomic analysis of 1.5 million people identifies genes related to addiction, antisocial behavior, and health”, has been accepted for publication in Nature Neuroscience. Dr. Abraham Palmer and Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige are co-authors along with several others. The article can be found here. Abraham and Sandra are also members of the Externalizing Consortium.

Palmer lab member Ariana Page had a healthy baby recently. Congratulations, Ariana!

Dr. Abraham Palmer and Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige attended the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Virtual Workshop: “Integrating Genomics with Dimensional and Transdiagnostic Approaches to Advance Mental Health Research” as panelists on April 6th, 2021. This workshop aims to discuss the current state of psychiatric genomics and new opportunities in dimensional/alternative phenotypes that align with the NIMH research. See details of the workshop here.

The article, “The cocaine and oxycodone biobanks, two repositories from genetically diverse and behaviorally characterized rats for the study of addiction”, has been accepted for publication in eNeuro. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Oksana Polesskaya, and Apurva Chitre and Bonnie Lin are co-authors on the paper.

Dr. Palmer presented at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Center of Excellence in the Omics, Systems Genetics and the Addictome (OSGA) Webinar Series. His talk, “From GWAS to gene: What are the essential analyses and how do we bring them together using heterogeneous stock rats?”, describes the tools to analyze GWAS in HS rats and the automated pipeline that performs GWAS in HS rats. Furthermore, this talk explains the role of fine mapping of associated regions and the use of secondary analyses to prioritize genes in associated intervals.

The article, “Item-level genome-wide association study of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test in three population-based cohorts”, has been accepted for publication in The American Journal of Psychiatry. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Sandra Sanchez Roige are co-authors on the paper.

The article, “Genetic and pharmacological manipulations of glyoxalase 1 mediate ethanol withdrawal seizure susceptibility in mice”, has been accepted for publication in Brain Sciences. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Amanda Barkley-Levenson are co-authors on the paper.

The article, “Sensitivity to food and cocaine cues are independent traits in a large sample of heterogeneous stock rats”, has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports. Apurva Chitre and Drs. Oksana Polesskaya and Abraham Palmer are co-authors on the paper.

Congratulations, Amanda!