Transcriptome analysis of cortical tissue reveals shared sets of downregulated genes in autism and schizophrenia.

Autism (AUT), schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD) are three highly heritable neuropsychiatric conditions. Clinical similarities and genetic overlap between the three disorders have been reported; however, the causes and the downstream effects of this overlap remain elusive. By analyzing transcriptomic RNA-sequencing data generated from post-mortem cortical brain tissues from AUT, SCZ, BPD and control subjects, we have begun to characterize the extent of gene expression overlap between these disorders. We report that the AUT and SCZ transcriptomes are significantly correlated (P<0.001), whereas the other two cross-disorder comparisons (AUT-BPD and SCZ-BPD) are not. Among AUT and SCZ, we find that the genes differentially expressed across disorders are involved in neurotransmission and synapse regulation. Despite the lack of global transcriptomic overlap across all three disorders, we highlight two genes, IQSEC3 and COPS7A, which are significantly downregulated compared with controls across all three disorders, suggesting either shared etiology or compensatory changes across these neuropsychiatric conditions. Finally, we tested for enrichment of genes differentially expressed across disorders in genetic association signals in AUT, SCZ or BPD, reporting lack of signal in any of the previously published genome-wide association study (GWAS). Together, these studies highlight the importance of examining gene expression from the primary tissue involved in neuropsychiatric conditions-the cortical brain. We identify a shared role for altered neurotransmission and synapse regulation in AUT and SCZ, in addition to two genes that may more generally contribute to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions

The Religion Clauses of the First Ammendment: Guarantees of States\u27 Rights?

The First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution begins: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . . The Supreme Court has consistently held that these words, usually called the religion clauses, were meant to prohibit laws that violate religious freedom or equality. In recent years, however, a growing number of constitutional law and history scholars have contended that the religion clauses were not intended to protect religious freedom, but to reserve the states\u27 rights to legislate on. If the states\u27 rights interpretation of the religion clauses were correct and came to be accepted by the Supreme Court, it could profoundly affect the way the Court decides church-state cases involving state laws. It would allow the states to legislate on religion-even to violate religious freedom, discriminate on the basis of religion, or to establish a particular religion. This book carefully, thoroughly, and critically examines all the arguments for such an interpretation and, more importantly, all the available historical evidence. It concludes that the clauses were meant to protect religious freedom and equality of the individuals not the states\u27 rights.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1185/thumbnail.jp

Religious Freedom: Virginia Doesn\u27t Need a New Statute

One would think that Virginians would be united and steadfast in their devotion to the Statute for Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson, adopted by the General Assembly in 1786, and since then praised by liberty-loving persons throughout the world. Currently, however, a group spearheaded by a few professors at Christopher Newport University and by the editor of the Religious Herald, the newspaper of the largest association of Baptists in Virginia, wants to update Jefferson\u27s statute so that it guarantees religious people a right to participate in the public forum, and express their points of view. On Jan. 24, The Times-Dispatch published a copy of the proposed legislation along with an op/ed written on its behalf by Stephen Strehle

Birth matters: discourses of childbirth in contemporary American culture

In this project, I use a rhetorical-cultural approach to examine the multiple and often-contradictory messages circulating in contemporary American culture about the event of childbirth. Though many feminist scholars have shown how professional obstetrics’ view of physiological birth shapes medical practice and women’s experiences in hospitals, few have asked what the American public is learning about birth outside of the hospital, or why that knowledge might matter. In order to fill that gap, I trace a dominant narrative that positions institutionalized biomedical knowledge and technology as the exclusive producers of health and safety for birthing women and their babies in popular film and television, in the making of medical research and policy, and in the way the insurance industry frames women as consumers or recipients. I argue that it is not just in the delivery room that this ideology gets communicated, nor are birthing women the only ones affected by its messages. Rather, my analysis illustrates how this narrative has seeped into the fabric of how American society as a whole understands and engages with medicine, women’s bodies, and science. In the final chapter, in order to explore a growing resistance to this ideology, I turn to the discursive construction of birth in online media. Read alongside the mainstream narrative, the rhetoric in these online spaces illustrates how the stakes of this debate are not just about who gets to decide where and how women should have their babies, but ultimately over who gets to interpret and apply science. The battle over birth in this country is, as this dissertation shows, also a battle over the public’s understanding of institutionalized medicine’s exclusive claims to scientific knowledge. By exposing the ways that narratives about and within that system function to sustain it, and illuminating the ways that the organizing power of new media is generating resistance to that system, this project seeks to intervene in conversations about the cultural meanings of childbirth, about meaningful and ethical health care, and, ultimately, about the production and circulation of knowledge about science, medicine, and women’s bodies

The Right to Religion-Based Exemptions in Early America: The Case of Conscientious Objectors to Conscription

One of the more controversial decisions handed down by the Supreme Court in recent years was its decision in the case of Employment Division, Oregon v. Smith, which raised the basic issue of whether the free exercise clause of the First Amendment guarantees a right to religion-based exemptions, i.e., whether it gives persons and groups a prima facie right to be exempt from having to obey valid laws when they have religious reasons for noncompliance. More specifically, in Smith, two Native Americans claimed that their prosecution for using an illegal drug, peyote, was precluded by the free exercise clause because they had taken the drug as part of a religious ceremony of their church. To the surprise of many, the Supreme Court rejected both the Native Americans\u27 claim (by a vote of six to three) and the general proposition that the free exercise clause gives persons a right to religion-based exemptions (by five to four). Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia said, We have never held that an individual\u27s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. Moreover, in order to preclude such a holding in the future, the Court discarded the strict scrutiny test, adopted in its 1963 Sherbert v. Verner decision according to which any burden on any religious practice imposed by any law, even one that is religion-neutral and generally applicable, is unconstitutional unless it can be justified by a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of protecting that interest. The Court said that the free exercise clause requires only that laws be religion-neutral and generally applicable. It added, however, that although courts were not required to, legislatures were free to grant religion-based exemptions from valid, secular laws as a way of alleviating incidental burdens on the exercise of religion. Because of the Smith decision, governments can now regulate and even criminalize practices that some persons or groups consider to.be religious in nature, provided it does so through a law that is constitutional and that is applied to all instances of the practice, secular as well as religious

Religious Freedom Legislation in the 2013 Virginia General Assembly

If there is any Virginia law that deserves to be called iconic, it is Section 16 of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which combines the religious freedom provision in Virginia\u27s first Declaration of Rights (1776) with portions of Thomas Jefferson\u27s Statute for Religious Liberty (1785). These two documents also inspired the religion clauses of the First amendment and are world famous. [...] This article consists of the following sections: Section one presents the content of the proposed amendment and explains the ways in which it is unclear, redundant, and otherwise poorly written. Section two addresses the issue of whether the provisions intended to protect religious expression, including prayer, are necessary and can solve the problems they are intended to solve. It also identifies the crucial challenge in cases involving religious expression - namely, determining correctly whether it is the government or a private individual or group that is expressing or promoting a religious belief or practice. This determination must be made because religious expression or advocacy by the government, but not by private individuals or groups, is prohibited by the First Amendment and Section 16 of the Virginia Bill of Rights. Section three examines whether Senate Joint Resolution 287 represents an attempt to challenge and change the U.S. Supreme Court\u27s interpretation of the religion clauses. It focuses in particular on a provision that seeks to authorize prayers before or during meetings of legislative bodies, such as county boards of supervisors. Section four discusses the necessity for and the constitutionality of one of the provisions in the proposed amendment that is unrelated to religious expression, namely, one that exempts students from having to participate in academic work to which they have religious objections. The fifth and final section concludes that Senate Joint Resolution 287, even if written well, should be rejected because most of its provisions are unnecessary and some are either unconstitutional or will encourage state agencies, officials, or employees to take actions that will be declared unconstitutional by federal or state courts

Religious Freedom Legislation in the 2013 Virginia General Assembly

This article consists of the following sections: Section one presents the content of the proposed amendment and explains the ways in which it is unclear, redundant, and otherwise poorly written. Section two addresses the issue of whether the provisions intended to protect religious expression, including prayer, are necessary and can solve the problems they are intended to solve. It also identifies the crucial challenge in cases involving religious expression - namely, determining correctly whether it is the government or a private individual or group that is expressing or promoting a religious belief or practice. This determination must be made because religious expression or advocacy by the government, but not by private individuals or groups, is prohibited by the First Amendment and Section 16 of the Virginia Bill of Rights. Section three examines whether Senate Joint Resolution 287 represents an attempt to challenge and change the U.S. Supreme Court\u27s interpretation of the religion clauses. It focuses in particular on a provision that seeks to authorize prayers before or during meetings of legislative bodies, such as county boards of supervisors. Section four discusses the necessity for and the constitutionality of one of the provisions in the proposed amendment that is unrelated to religious expression, namely, one that exempts students from having to participate in academic work to which they have religious objections. The fifth and final section concludes that Senate Joint Resolution 287, even if written well, should be rejected because most of its provisions are unnecessary and some are either unconstitutional or will encourage state agencies, officials, or employees to take actions that will be declared unconstitutional by federal or state courts

Catholic Claims Stretch the First Amendment

The Obama administration recently issued a regulation requiring all employers except religious organizations to include contraceptives in their employees\u27 health insurance. The Catholic Church and various politicians have accused the administration of violating the church\u27s religious freedom. Although the administration has modified its original regulation, it continues to be attacked for waging war on religious freedom