Approved Research

Evaluating the interaction of genetic risk/protective factors and neurodegenerative genotypes

Lay summary

The first goal of our projects is to identify genes and causal genetic variants that regulates the variance of resting-state fMRI phenotypes.

The second aim is to leverage the large scale of UK Biobank data by developing multivariate approaches taking into account the potential joint effects between genes and/or covariations between brain regions.

We will expand our search by performing the largest subpopulation genetic association of different neurodegenerative diseases and by evaluating the interaction of genetic risk/protective factors and neurodegenerative genotypes. This extension of our current scope will allow us to (1) fill in the current knowledge gap of subpopulation-specific genetic risk for different neurodegenerative diseases, (2) improve the power of genetic association studies, and (3) identify novel genetic variants associated with different neurodegenerative diseases and their respective imaging phenotypes.

We will also study rare variants associated with less common neurodegenerative diseases. Collection and extensive evaluation of rare variant carriers' phenotypic data will allow us to better characterize the atypical phenotypes of these diseases.