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Scholarly Works (5 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2019)

This dissertation examines the racialization of immigrants and immigration in US political discourse, using quotes from candidates and their campaigns that were reported in three national newspapers during the 2016 presidential election. Two research questions guide this dissertation: 1) How did the candidates running for president in the 2016 presidential election extend racial meaning (i.e. engage in the process of racialization) to the topic of immigration? 2) What discursive strategies did candidates in the 2016 presidential election employ to give legitimacy to their positions and their statements on immigration? The racialization of immigrants and immigration in the political discourse was accomplished primarily through linking and conflating all immigration in the United States with Mexican and Latino immigration in particular. Themes the border and crime and criminals were thematically tied together, often co-occurring, while crime and criminals and family and community were the primary theme/counter-theme in the discursive construction of immigrants. The minor themes values, weakness and strength, and common sense, sanity, and intelligence frequently surfaced in the data as well. This data contributes to the existing literature on race, immigration, and political discourse by illustrating how presidential candidates employed themes and discursive strategies in order to argue for the existence of a particular racialized “problem,” for which their potential election was sold as the “solution.”

    Cover page: Race to the Finish: Political Discourse and the Racialization of Immigration in the 2016 Presidential Election
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UCLA Previously Published Works (2021)
    Bipolar disorder is a heritable mental illness with complex etiology. We performed a genome-wide association study of 41,917 bipolar disorder cases and 371,549 controls of European ancestry, which identified 64 associated genomic loci. Bipolar disorder risk alleles were enriched in genes in synaptic signaling pathways and brain-expressed genes, particularly those with high specificity of expression in neurons of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Significant signal enrichment was found in genes encoding targets of antipsychotics, calcium channel blockers, antiepileptics and anesthetics. Integrating expression quantitative trait locus data implicated 15 genes robustly linked to bipolar disorder via gene expression, encoding druggable targets such as HTR6, MCHR1, DCLK3 and FURIN. Analyses of bipolar disorder subtypes indicated high but imperfect genetic correlation between bipolar disorder type I and II and identified additional associated loci. Together, these results advance our understanding of the biological etiology of bipolar disorder, identify novel therapeutic leads and prioritize genes for functional follow-up studies.
      Cover page: Genome-wide association study of more than 40,000 bipolar disorder cases provides new insights into the underlying biology
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UCLA Previously Published Works (2019)
      Bipolar disorder is a highly heritable psychiatric disorder. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 20,352 cases and 31,358 controls of European descent, with follow-up analysis of 822 variants with P < 1 × 10-4 in an additional 9,412 cases and 137,760 controls. Eight of the 19 variants that were genome-wide significant (P < 5 × 10-8) in the discovery GWAS were not genome-wide significant in the combined analysis, consistent with small effect sizes and limited power but also with genetic heterogeneity. In the combined analysis, 30 loci were genome-wide significant, including 20 newly identified loci. The significant loci contain genes encoding ion channels, neurotransmitter transporters and synaptic components. Pathway analysis revealed nine significantly enriched gene sets, including regulation of insulin secretion and endocannabinoid signaling. Bipolar I disorder is strongly genetically correlated with schizophrenia, driven by psychosis, whereas bipolar II disorder is more strongly correlated with major depressive disorder. These findings address key clinical questions and provide potential biological mechanisms for bipolar disorder.
        Cover page: Genome-wide association study identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UCLA Previously Published Works (2018)
        Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are two distinct diagnoses that share symptomology. Understanding the genetic factors contributing to the shared and disorder-specific symptoms will be crucial for improving diagnosis and treatment. In genetic data consisting of 53,555 cases (20,129 bipolar disorder [BD], 33,426 schizophrenia [SCZ]) and 54,065 controls, we identified 114 genome-wide significant loci implicating synaptic and neuronal pathways shared between disorders. Comparing SCZ to BD (23,585 SCZ, 15,270 BD) identified four genomic regions including one with disorder-independent causal variants and potassium ion response genes as contributing to differences in biology between the disorders. Polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses identified several significant correlations within case-only phenotypes including SCZ PRS with psychotic features and age of onset in BD. For the first time, we discover specific loci that distinguish between BD and SCZ and identify polygenic components underlying multiple symptom dimensions. These results point to the utility of genetics to inform symptomology and potential treatment.
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC San Francisco Previously Published Works (2019)
          Genetic influences on psychiatric disorders transcend diagnostic boundaries, suggesting substantial pleiotropy of contributing loci. However, the nature and mechanisms of these pleiotropic effects remain unclear. We performed analyses of 232,964 cases and 494,162 controls from genome-wide studies of anorexia nervosa, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome. Genetic correlation analyses revealed a meaningful structure within the eight disorders, identifying three groups of inter-related disorders. Meta-analysis across these eight disorders detected 109 loci associated with at least two psychiatric disorders, including 23 loci with pleiotropic effects on four or more disorders and 11 loci with antagonistic effects on multiple disorders. The pleiotropic loci are located within genes that show heightened expression in the brain throughout the lifespan, beginning prenatally in the second trimester, and play prominent roles in neurodevelopmental processes. These findings have important implications for psychiatric nosology, drug development, and risk prediction.
            Cover page: Genomic Relationships, Novel Loci, and Pleiotropic Mechanisms across Eight Psychiatric Disorders
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