Elucidation of pathological neural network via identification of rare genomic variants associated with mental disorders

Our research has been focused on identifying genetic mutations related to the cross-sectional onset of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorder. The goal of the current study is to develop useful diagnoses and therapies targeting disease-specific or disease-wide patholocigal neural networks from comprehensive understanding of brain imaging database, postmortem brain analysis and model organisms, based on the deleterious genetic mutations. Recently, we focused on the protocadherin genes and development of the gene-modified mice and the iPS cells to elucidate the neural networks and molecular pathologies in bipolar model organisms.