Nature Neuroscience7, 434 - 439 (2004)
Published online: 27 April 2004; | doi:10.1038/nn1230
Progress in the use of microarray technology to study the neurobiology of disease
Károly Mirnics1
& Jonathan Pevsner2
1
Karoly Mirnics is in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, E1453 Biomedical Science, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA. karoly+@pitt.edu
2
Jonathan Pevsner is in the Department of Neurology, Kennedy Krieger Institute, and the Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 707 N. Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA. pevsner@jhmi.edu
The diverse functions of the brain are mediated by neurons and glia whose phenotype is defined by a dynamically maintained set of gene transcripts, or 'transcriptome'. Large-scale analysis of gene expression in postmortem brain using microarray technology has the potential to elucidate molecular changes that occur in disease states. There are unique challenges associated with studies of postmortem brain, including limited sample sizes and variable clinical phenotypes that are typical of complex disorders. Nevertheless, recent microarray-based studies have implicated both individual dysregulated genes and abnormal patterns of gene expression in brain disorders.
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