Huda Akil
University of Michigan
H-index: 145
North America-United States
Description
Huda Akil, With an exceptional h-index of 145 and a recent h-index of 58 (since 2020), a distinguished researcher at University of Michigan, specializes in the field of Neuroscience.
His recent articles reflect a diverse array of research interests and contributions to the field:
A revamped rat reference genome improves the discovery of genetic diversity in laboratory rats
Cell-Type Specific Reductions in Interneuron Gene Expression within Subregions of the Anterior and Posterior Cingulate Gyrus of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Subjects
Resource: A Curated Database of Brain-Related Functional Gene Sets (Brain. GMT)
Methods for treating psychiatric disorders or symptoms thereof using ncam peptide mimetics
Adolescent environmental enrichment induces social resilience and alters neural gene expression in a selectively bred rodent model with anxious phenotype
The impact of COVID-19 on a college freshman sample reveals genetic and nongenetic forms of susceptibility and resilience to stress
In Memoriam Bernard Agranoff
Toward a precision treatment approach for metabolic depression: Integrating epidemiology, neuroscience, and psychiatry
Professor Information
University | University of Michigan |
---|---|
Position | Professor |
Citations(all) | 79824 |
Citations(since 2020) | 17513 |
Cited By | 69362 |
hIndex(all) | 145 |
hIndex(since 2020) | 58 |
i10Index(all) | 512 |
i10Index(since 2020) | 242 |
University Profile Page | University of Michigan |
Research & Interests List
Neuroscience
Top articles of Huda Akil
A revamped rat reference genome improves the discovery of genetic diversity in laboratory rats
The seventh iteration of the reference genome assembly for Rattus norvegicus—mRatBN7.2—corrects numerous misplaced segments and reduces base-level errors by approximately 9-fold and increases contiguity by 290-fold compared with its predecessor. Gene annotations are now more complete, improving the mapping precision of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomics datasets. We jointly analyzed 163 short-read whole-genome sequencing datasets representing 120 laboratory rat strains and substrains using mRatBN7.2. We defined ∼20.0 million sequence variations, of which 18,700 are predicted to potentially impact the function of 6,677 genes. We also generated a new rat genetic map from 1,893 heterogeneous stock rats and annotated transcription start sites and alternative polyadenylation sites. The mRatBN7.2 assembly, along with the extensive analysis of genomic variations among rat strains …
Authors
Tristan V de Jong,Yanchao Pan,Pasi Rastas,Daniel Munro,Monika Tutaj,Huda Akil,Chris Benner,Denghui Chen,Apurva S Chitre,William Chow,Vincenza Colonna,Clifton L Dalgard,Wendy M Demos,Peter A Doris,Erik Garrison,Aron M Geurts,Hakan M Gunturkun,Victor Guryev,Thibaut Hourlier,Kerstin Howe,Jun Huang,Ted Kalbfleisch,Panjun Kim,Ling Li,Spencer Mahaffey,Fergal J Martin,Pejman Mohammadi,Ayse Bilge Ozel,Oksana Polesskaya,Michal Pravenec,Pjotr Prins,Jonathan Sebat,Jennifer R Smith,Leah C Solberg Woods,Boris Tabakoff,Alan Tracey,Marcela Uliano-Silva,Flavia Villani,Hongyang Wang,Burt M Sharp,Francesca Telese,Zhihua Jiang,Laura Saba,Xusheng Wang,Terence D Murphy,Abraham A Palmer,Anne E Kwitek,Melinda R Dwinell,Robert W Williams,Jun Z Li,Hao Chen
Journal
Cell Genomics
Published Date
2024/4/10
Cell-Type Specific Reductions in Interneuron Gene Expression within Subregions of the Anterior and Posterior Cingulate Gyrus of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Subjects
Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BP) patients share overlapping and distinct neurocognitive deficits. Neuroimaging of these patients and postmortem gene expression analyses suggest that compromised cingulate gyrus GABA-ergic interneurons may contribute to cognitive impairments in SZ and BP. Therefore, we investigated potential gene expression signatures for SZ and BP using interneuron cell-type specific markers including glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD67), parvalbumin (PV), somatostatin (SST), and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) within cingulate Brodmann’s areas (BA). We report reduced GAD67 mRNA in anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) of SZ and BP subjects with BA24c’ being most dysregulated across disorders, demonstrating reduced PV (SZ), SST (BP), and VIP mRNA (SZ and BP). Dorsal posterior cingulate (dPCC) displayed decreased SST (BP) whereas retrosplenial cortex (RSC) showed reduced PV (SZ and BP) and SST mRNA (BP). Our results show shared and unique transcription signatures of two disorders in specific cingulate gyrus regions and cell types. SZ and BP show a similar profile of aMCC gene expression reductions suggesting subregional dysregulation within areas associated with error/action monitoring and the saliency network. In dPCC/RSC, transcriptional changes are associated with disease-specific gene/subregion signatures, possibly underlying differential effects on allocation of attentional resources and visuospatial memory processing unique to each disorder.
Authors
David M Krolewski,Maria Waselus,Blynn G Bunney,Richard M Myers,Jack D Barchas,Francis SY Lee,Alan F Schatzberg,William E Bunney,Huda Akil,Stanley J Watson Jr
Journal
bioRxiv
Published Date
2024/3/20
Resource: A Curated Database of Brain-Related Functional Gene Sets (Brain. GMT)
Transcriptional profiling has become a common tool for investigating the nervous system. During analysis, differential expression results are often compared to functional ontology databases, which contain curated gene sets representing well-studied pathways. This dependence can cause neuroscience studies to be interpreted in terms of functional pathways documented in better studied tissues (e.g., liver) and topics (e.g., cancer), and systematically emphasizes well-studied genes, leaving other findings in the obscurity of the brain "ignorome". To address this issue, we compiled a curated database of 918 gene sets related to nervous system function, tissue, and cell types ("Brain.GMT") that can be used within common analysis pipelines (GSEA, limma, edgeR) to interpret results from three species (rat, mouse, human). Brain.GMT includes brain-related gene sets curated from the Molecular Signatures Database (MSigDB) and extracted from public databases (GeneWeaver, Gemma, DropViz, BrainInABlender, HippoSeq) and published studies containing differential expression results. Although Brain.GMT is still undergoing development and currently only represents a fraction of available brain gene sets, "brain ignorome" genes are already better represented than in traditional Gene Ontology databases. Moreover, Brain.GMT substantially improves the quantity and quality of gene sets identified as enriched with differential expression in neuroscience studies, enhancing interpretation.
Authors
Megan Hastings Hagenauer,Yusra Sannah,Elaine Hebda-Bauer,Cosette Rhoads,Angela M O'Connor,Stanley J Watson Jr,Huda Akil
Journal
bioRxiv
Published Date
2024
Methods for treating psychiatric disorders or symptoms thereof using ncam peptide mimetics
The present invention provides methods for treating or alleviating one or more symptoms of depression and/or anxiety in a subject comprising administering an effective amount of an NCAM peptide mimetic to the subject. The symptoms of depression and/or anxiety are typically observed in or associated with a neurological condition. The present invention also provides methods for treating a neurological condition such as a psychiatric disorder in a subject comprising administering an effective amount of an NCAM peptide mimetic to the subject.
Published Date
2023/2/23
Adolescent environmental enrichment induces social resilience and alters neural gene expression in a selectively bred rodent model with anxious phenotype
Stress is a major influence on mental health status; the ways that individuals respond to or copes with stressors determine whether they are negatively affected in the future. Stress responses are established by an interplay between genetics, environment, and life experiences. Psychosocial stress is particularly impactful during adolescence, a critical period for the development of mood disorders. In this study we compared two established, selectively-bred Sprague Dawley rat lines, the “internalizing” bred Low Responder (bLR) line versus the “externalizing” bred High Responder (bHR) line, to investigate how genetic temperament and adolescent environment impact future responses to social interactions and psychosocial stress, and how these determinants of stress response interact. Male bLR and bHR rats were exposed to social and environmental enrichment in adolescence prior to experiencing social defeat and were then assessed for social interaction and anxiety-like behavior. Adolescent enrichment caused rats to display more social interaction, as well as nominally less social avoidance, less submission during defeat, and resilience to the effects of social stress on corticosterone, in a manner that seemed more notable in bLRs. For bHRs, enrichment also caused greater aggression during a neutral social encounter and nominally during defeat, and decreased anxiety-like behavior. To explore the neurobiology underlying the development of social resilience in the anxious phenotype bLRs, RNA-seq was conducted on the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, two brain regions that mediate stress regulation and social behavior. Gene …
Authors
Angela M O’Connor,Megan H Hagenauer,Liam Cannon Thew Forrester,Pamela M Maras,Keiko Arakawa,Elaine K Hebda-Bauer,Huzefa Khalil,Evelyn R Richardson,Farizah I Rob,Yusra Sannah,Stanley J Watson Jr,Huda Akil
Journal
BioRXiv
Published Date
2023/10/4
The impact of COVID-19 on a college freshman sample reveals genetic and nongenetic forms of susceptibility and resilience to stress
Using a longitudinal approach, we sought to define the interplay between genetic and nongenetic factors in shaping vulnerability or resilience to COVID-19 pandemic stress, as indexed by the emergence of symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. University of Michigan freshmen were characterized at baseline using multiple psychological instruments. Subjects were genotyped, and a polygenic risk score for depression (MDD-PRS) was calculated. Daily physical activity and sleep were captured. Subjects were sampled at multiple time points throughout the freshman year on clinical rating scales, including GAD-7 and PHQ-9 for anxiety and depression, respectively. Two cohorts (2019 to 2021) were compared to a pre-COVID-19 cohort to assess the impact of the pandemic. Across cohorts, 26 to 40% of freshmen developed symptoms of anxiety or depression (N = 331). Depression symptoms significantly increased in …
Authors
Cortney A Turner,Huzefa Khalil,Virginia Murphy-Weinberg,Megan H Hagenauer,Linda Gates,Yu Tang,Lauren Weinberg,Robert Grysko,Leonor Floran-Garduno,Thomas Dokas,Catherine Samaniego,Zhuo Zhao,Yu Fang,Srijan Sen,Juan F Lopez,Stanley J Watson Jr,Huda Akil
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published Date
2023/12/5
In Memoriam Bernard Agranoff
Bernie received his BS in Chemistry from the University of Michigan and an MD degree from Wayne State University. Following post-doctoral studies at MIT and NIH, in 1961 Bernie moved to the University of Michigan where he was appointed to the faculty in the Department of Biological Chemistry and as a member of the newly formed Mental Health Research Institute (MHRI). Bernie was a giant in the field of neuroscience and made numerous seminal discoveries. In the mid-1960s, he was the first to demonstrate that protein synthesis was a prerequisite for the formation of long-term memory in goldfish. His ground-breaking studies, which were featured in an article in Scientific American and reprinted 100,000 times, was the stimulus for several prominent neuroscientists to enter the field. Bernie considered that neuroplasticity was essential for learning and memory and subsequently pioneered an optic nerve …
Authors
Huda Akil,Stephen K Fisher
Journal
Neuropsychopharmacology
Published Date
2023/2
Toward a precision treatment approach for metabolic depression: Integrating epidemiology, neuroscience, and psychiatry
BackgroundIndividuals with comorbid major depressive disorder and type 2 diabetes represent an important subgroup of patients for whom conventional treatment may be insufficient. A precision treatment approach that addresses insulin resistance with an outcome of a positive response to antidepressants may prove beneficial.MethodsThis study utilized an emulated target trial on a large dataset from the Optum Clinformatics Data Mart Database. We evaluated the effect of adjuvant pioglitazone, an insulin-sensitizing drug, on antidepressant response among 4696 people with type 2 diabetes, comparing it with DPP4 (dipeptidyl peptidase-4) inhibitors (non–insulin-sensitizing). An additional analysis involving 6518 participants was conducted to assess the efficacy of pioglitazone versus sulfonylureas.ResultsThe instrumental variable analysis indicated that the initiation of an antidepressant with pioglitazone was …
Authors
Kathleen Watson,Huda Akil,Natalie Rasgon
Journal
Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
Published Date
2023/10/1
Professor FAQs
What is Huda Akil's h-index at University of Michigan?
The h-index of Huda Akil has been 58 since 2020 and 145 in total.
What are Huda Akil's top articles?
The articles with the titles of
A revamped rat reference genome improves the discovery of genetic diversity in laboratory rats
Cell-Type Specific Reductions in Interneuron Gene Expression within Subregions of the Anterior and Posterior Cingulate Gyrus of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Subjects
Resource: A Curated Database of Brain-Related Functional Gene Sets (Brain. GMT)
Methods for treating psychiatric disorders or symptoms thereof using ncam peptide mimetics
Adolescent environmental enrichment induces social resilience and alters neural gene expression in a selectively bred rodent model with anxious phenotype
The impact of COVID-19 on a college freshman sample reveals genetic and nongenetic forms of susceptibility and resilience to stress
In Memoriam Bernard Agranoff
Toward a precision treatment approach for metabolic depression: Integrating epidemiology, neuroscience, and psychiatry
...
are the top articles of Huda Akil at University of Michigan.
What are Huda Akil's research interests?
The research interests of Huda Akil are: Neuroscience
What is Huda Akil's total number of citations?
Huda Akil has 79,824 citations in total.