Research
Mouse molecular genetics are used to study the pathogenesis and develop treatment for neurodegenerative diseases
Appointments
- Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
Biography
Yang is interested in using the mouse genetic approach to study the pathogenesis and to identify potential therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases, particularly for Huntington’s Disease (HD) and Parkinson’s Disease (PD).
Yang and his colleagues focus on the following projects:
- in order to understand how mutant Huntington acts to result in a wide variety of clinical symptoms ranging from psychiatric, cognitive to motor deficits, they generate and analyze brain regional-specific models of HD in mice
- they take advantage of the high-speed BAC transgenic system to systematically test candidate dominant genetic modifiers of HD in mice.
- they use BAC transgenesis to introduce known PD mutations into mice to develop mouse models for Parkinson’s Disease
Publications
- Croce, KR, Ng, C, Pankiv, S, Albarran, E, Langfelder, P, Ramos de Jesus, A et al.. A rare genetic variant confers resistance to neurodegeneration across multiple neurological disorders by augmenting selective autophagy. Neuron. 2025; :. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2025.08.018. PubMed PMID:40945514 PubMed Central PMC12435916.
- Wang, B, Wang, ZX, Lv, LM, Wang, X, Lu, JC, Zhao, YF et al.. Tenascin-R aggravates Aβ production in the perforant pathway by regulating Nav1.6 activity in APP/PS1 mice. Alzheimers Dement. 2025;21 (9):e70633. doi: 10.1002/alz.70633. PubMed PMID:40891036 PubMed Central PMC12402400.
- Hintiryan, H, Zhu, M, Zhao, P, Zhang, M, Barry, J, Nanda, S et al.. Neural networks of the mouse visceromotor cortex. Nature. 2025; :. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09360-w. PubMed PMID:40866707 .
- Chen, D, Yang, XW, Fu, J, Zhang, DZ, Chen, GQ, Cai, W et al.. A disproportionality analysis of adverse events caused by pexidartinib from the FDA adverse event reporting system. Sci Rep. 2025;15 (1):31689. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-17232-6. PubMed PMID:40877383 PubMed Central PMC12394515.
- Ahmed, S, Bowers, C, Munoz-Martin, J, Jamwal, S, Sanganahalli, BG, Giuliano, L et al.. The Microglial TREM2 Receptor Programs Hippocampal Development in a Mouse Model of Childhood Deprivation. bioRxiv. 2025; :. doi: 10.1101/2025.08.11.669425. PubMed PMID:40832299 PubMed Central PMC12363838.