Mykhai­lo Batiuk 

Title

Sin­gle-Cell insights into Schiz­o­phre­nia and Trau­mat­ic Memory 

Abstract

Under­stand­ing the mol­e­c­u­lar bases of men­tal dis­eases has long been hin­dered by lim­i­ta­tions in exper­i­men­tal tools, such as bulk tis­sue analy­ses, which have restrict­ed our abil­i­ty to uncov­er cel­lu­lar alter­ations and hence devel­op more effec­tive ther­a­pies. How­ev­er, recent break­throughs in sin­gle-cell genomics have rev­o­lu­tion­ized the field, enabling us to dis­sect cell-type-spe­cif­ic changes in men­tal dis­eases like schiz­o­phre­nia and post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) with unprece­dent­ed resolution. 

This talk will pri­mar­i­ly focus on my pre­vi­ous research of human schiz­o­phre­nia, where I lever­aged sin­gle-cell and spa­tial tran­scrip­tomics tools to elu­ci­date the mol­e­c­u­lar and cel­lu­lar pathol­o­gy of the dis­or­der. This analy­sis revealed gen­er­al decrease in abun­dance of GABAer­gic neu­rons and con­comi­tant increase in exci­ta­to­ry neu­rons, par­tic­u­lar­ly pro­nounced in the upper lay­ers of the pre­frontal cor­tex, along­side tran­scrip­tion­al dis­rup­tions across var­i­ous neu­ronal fam­i­lies. Notably, this involved the down­reg­u­la­tion of ener­gy metab­o­lism and the upreg­u­la­tion of neu­ro­trans­mis­sion genes. These results sug­gest a gen­er­al net­work impair­ment, most promi­nent­ly with­in upper cor­ti­cal lay­ers, as a fun­da­men­tal sub­strate under­ly­ing schiz­o­phre­nia symptomatology. 

In addi­tion to my work on schiz­o­phre­nia, I will also present my ongo­ing research of trau­mat­ic mem­o­ry, a piv­otal aspect of PTSD that still remains poor­ly under­stood. By build­ing upon my exper­tise in sin­gle-cell genomics, I am employ­ing tools from sin­gle-cell tran­scrip­tomics and epi­ge­net­ics, includ­ing DNA methy­la­tion and 3D chro­matin con­for­ma­tion analy­sis. Ini­tial pro­fil­ing has already uncov­ered tran­scrip­tion­al changes in spe­cif­ic cell sub­types asso­ci­at­ed with trau­mat­ic mem­o­ry. Cur­rent­ly, I am aug­ment­ing these find­ings with com­pre­hen­sive epi­ge­net­ic pro­fil­ing to fur­ther clar­i­fy the under­ly­ing tran­scrip­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry changes. This mul­ti­fac­eted approach aims to pro­vide nov­el insights into the biol­o­gy of trau­mat­ic mem­o­ry and its role in PTSD, ulti­mate­ly iden­ti­fy­ing nov­el mol­e­c­u­lar tar­gets for future therapies. 

Biog­ra­phy

Mykhai­lo Batiuk, since his PhD stud­ies in Leu­ven, Bel­gium, has been inter­est­ed in brain cel­lu­lar het­ero­gene­ity. Dur­ing his PhD, he devel­oped a com­pre­hen­sive approach rely­ing on sin­gle-cell tran­scrip­tomics, which enabled him to iden­ti­fy five astro­cyte sub­types in the mouse cor­tex and hip­pocam­pus. In his first post-doc­tor­al fel­low­ship, he applied his exper­tise in sin­gle-cell tran­scrip­tomics to iden­ti­fy neu­ronal per­tur­ba­tions in patients suf­fer­ing from schiz­o­phre­nia. Cur­rent­ly, Mykhai­lo is con­tin­u­ing his sec­ond post-doc at the École Poly­tech­nique Fédérale de Lau­sanne, Switzer­land. His cur­rent goal is to com­bine his expe­ri­ence with neu­ron-glia inter­ac­tions, psy­chi­a­try, and sin­gle-cell genomics to research the epi­ge­net­ic bases of trau­mat­ic memories. 

Home-page: https://​peo​ple​.epfl​.ch/​m​y​k​h​a​i​l​o​.​b​a​t​iuk