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Neuroscience in the era of functional genomics and systems biology

Nature volume 461, pages 908–915 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Advances in genetics and genomics have fuelled a revolution in discovery-based, or hypothesis-generating, research that provides a powerful complement to the more directly hypothesis-driven molecular, cellular and systems neuroscience. Genetic and functional genomic studies have already yielded important insights into neuronal diversity and function, as well as disease. One of the most exciting and challenging frontiers in neuroscience involves harnessing the power of large-scale genetic, genomic and phenotypic data sets, and the development of tools for data integration and mining. Methods for network analysis and systems biology offer the promise of integrating these multiple levels of data, connecting molecular pathways to nervous system function.

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Figure 1: Correlating genetic polymorphism and gene expression data.
Figure 2: WGCNA schematic.
Figure 3: The systems biology approach to high-dimensional data sets allows integration of multiple layers of data.

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Acknowledgements

This Review would not have been possible without help from members of the Geschwind laboratory, especially G. Coppola, who helped with several figures and provided critical comments on the manuscript; M. Oldham, for his pioneering use of WGCNA in the brain; and D. Crandall of the Mental Retardation Research Centre media core at the University of California, Los Angeles, for assistance with Fig. 3. We are also grateful to our collaborators S. Horvath, S. Nelson and P. Mischel, for their generosity of time and expertise. We apologize to the authors of the many outstanding studies we were not able to cite owing to space limitations. We acknowledge support from the US National Institutes of Health (grants NIMH R37 MH60233-06A1 and NINDS U24 NS52108), the US National Institute on Aging, and the Dr Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation programme on neural repair and rehabilitation for our work in functional genomics (D.H.G.); and the A. P. Giannini Foundation Medical Research Foundation and NARSAD (G.K.).

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  1. Department of Neurology and Semel Institute, Program in Neurogenetics and Neurobehavioural Genetics,

    Daniel H. Geschwind & Genevieve Konopka

  2. Department of Human Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.,

    Daniel H. Geschwind

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Competing interests: D.H.G. is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Human Brain Atlas project of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, which is a non-profit organization.

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Correspondence should be addressed to D.H.G. (dhg@ucla.edu).

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Geschwind, D., Konopka, G. Neuroscience in the era of functional genomics and systems biology. Nature 461, 908–915 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08537

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