Dr. Michael Didriksen, whose work with Lundbeck Pharmaceuticals is bridging preclinical and clinical schizophrenia and psychosis science, presented a webinar focused on the application of three novel psychiatric disease models, all carrying high-risk genetic copy number variations (CNVs).
His presentation on the research applications of mice carrying high-risk CNVs generated substantial interest from the neuropsychiatric community. Here are some of the most popular questions we received from participating researchers, with Dr. Didriksen's responses:
Using these models as risk variants, we can study how the underlying biology interacts with other factors to influence disease.
Importantly, this underlying biology may be relevant for other indications beyond schizophrenia, such as autism and epilepsy. It's important to focus on the symptomatic biology captured by these models, instead of focusing on one specific indication.
The advantage of these models is that they carry high-risk human genetic variants. The highly-penetrant variants in the CNV mice raise the likelihood of finding important biological signals.

His presentation on the research applications of mice carrying high-risk CNVs generated substantial interest from the neuropsychiatric community. Here are some of the most popular questions we received from participating researchers, with Dr. Didriksen's responses:
Q: Considering the high penetrance of the CNVs, did you expect marked phenotypes?
Using these models as risk variants, we can study how the underlying biology interacts with other factors to influence disease.
Q: The CNVs in these models all predispose for schizophrenia, but their phenotypes are very different - how relevant are these mice as models of schizophrenia and other related neuropathology?
Importantly, this underlying biology may be relevant for other indications beyond schizophrenia, such as autism and epilepsy. It's important to focus on the symptomatic biology captured by these models, instead of focusing on one specific indication.
Q: What studies are you or collaborators considering next?
Q: Are homozygous deletion models viable and fertile? Is there a gene dosage effect?
Q: Have you considered crossing the hemizygous animals onto different strains to unmask gene-interaction phenotypes?
Q: Can you recommend cohort or sample sizes that are reliable for investigations with these mice?
Q: What are the primary advantages of these models?
The advantage of these models is that they carry high-risk human genetic variants. The highly-penetrant variants in the CNV mice raise the likelihood of finding important biological signals.
During the webinar, Dr. Didriksen also addressed the importance of genes within the CNV regions, sex-related phenotypes in CNV models, and CNV model selection for particular investigations.
Learn more about these topics and the phenotypes identified in Taconic's neuropsychiatric disorder models by viewing Dr. Michael Didriksen's webinar presentation.
Learn more about these topics and the phenotypes identified in Taconic's neuropsychiatric disorder models by viewing Dr. Michael Didriksen's webinar presentation.
