{"id":1159,"date":"2015-08-24T09:35:46","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T09:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.med.virginia.edu\/chrc\/?page_id=1159"},"modified":"2023-02-08T20:26:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T20:26:17","slug":"mike-mcconnell-ph-d","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/chrc\/key-investigators\/mike-mcconnell-ph-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike McConnell, Ph.D."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"McConnell1\"<\/a>Genetic Mosaicism – Neuron-to-Neuron Genetic Diversity<\/h2>\n

Not every cell in a person\u2019s body has identical versions of that person\u2019s genome. There are tens of trillions of cells in the human body, so this is maybe not so surprising. However,\u00a0because each single neuron\u00a0connects\u00a0to thousands of other neurons,\u00a0single neurons with variant genomes\u00a0could directly alter neural circuit performance and, thereby, influence an individual\u2019s behavior. Understanding the circuit-wide consequences of diversity among neuronal genomes\u00a0motivates single cell analysis of human neurons in the McConnell lab.<\/p>\n

We think that genetic mosaicism \u2013 that is, the composite collection of neuron-to-neuron genetic diversity in one brain \u2013 can help explain why one identical twin may be autistic, when the other one is not. Or why another identical twin develops schizophrenia, while their sibling doesn\u2019t. We hypothesize that neuron-to-neuron genetic differences \u201cindividualize\u201d behavioral phenotypes by creating wiggle-room at the interface of nature and nurture. Most importantly, we want to know if numerous, weak genetic links to neuropsychiatric disorders can be refined by measuring genetic mosaicism.<\/p>\n

\"Mosaic\"<\/a><\/em>Our laboratory uses human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to make and\u00a0study the neural circuits that can be built from different human genomes. In parallel, we develop single cell approaches to understand the cause and consequence of genetic mosaicism among neurons.<\/p>\n

We have three immediate research goals.<\/em><\/p>\n

1) Determine if genetic mosaicism leads to somatic selection during the development of neural circuits.<\/p>\n

2) Understand how genetic mosaicism affects the performance of neural circuits.<\/p>\n

3) Discover genes that mediate the propensity for genetic mosaicism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Contact Information:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phone: (434) 924-0154<\/a><\/p>\n

Email: mikemc@virginia.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Website: McConnell Lab<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genetic Mosaicism – Neuron-to-Neuron Genetic Diversity Not every cell in a person\u2019s body has identical versions of that person\u2019s genome. There are tens of trillions of cells in the human body, so this is maybe not so surprising. However,\u00a0because each single neuron\u00a0connects\u00a0to thousands of other neurons,\u00a0single neurons with variant genomes\u00a0could directly alter neural circuit performance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1777,"featured_media":0,"parent":3086,"menu_order":40,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1159","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMike McConnell, Ph.D. - Child Health Research Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/chrc\/key-investigators\/mike-mcconnell-ph-d\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mike McConnell, Ph.D. - Child Health Research Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Genetic Mosaicism – Neuron-to-Neuron Genetic Diversity Not every cell in a person\u2019s body has identical versions of that person\u2019s genome. There are tens of trillions of cells in the human body, so this is maybe not so surprising. 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