Dr Nicholas Clifton
Research Fellow, NMHRI
- cliftonne@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 (0)29 2068 8337
- Hadyn Ellis Building, Maindy Road, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ
Overview
My research focuses on studying gene expression patterns of biological pathways associated with psychiatric disorders. I use multi-omics approaches to track expression dynamics across development and apply these data to questions about genetic risk with bioinformatics.
Publications
2024
- Clifton, N. E., Lin, J. Q., Holt, C. E., O’Donovan, M. C. and Mill, J. 2024. Enrichment of the local synaptic translatome for genetic risk associated with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. Biological Psychiatry 95(9), pp. 888-895. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2023.12.006)
- Wellard, N. L., Clifton, N. E., Rees, E., Thomas, K. L. and Hall, J. 2024. The association of hippocampal long-term potentiation-induced gene expression with genetic risk for psychosis. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 25(2), article number: 946. (10.3390/ijms25020946)
2023
- Clifton, N., Schulmann, A., Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consorti, ., Holmans, P., O'Donovan, M. and Vawter, M. 2023. The relationship between case-control differential gene expression from brain tissue and genetic associations in schizophrenia. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 192(5-6), pp. 85-92. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32931)
- Sperandeo, A. et al. 2023. Cortical neuronal hyperexcitability and synaptic changes in SGCE mutation-positive myoclonus dystonia. Brain 146(4), pp. 1523-1541. (10.1093/brain/awac365)
2022
- Moon, A. L., Clifton, N. E., Wellard, N., Thomas, K. L., Hall, J. and Brydges, N. M. 2022. Social interaction following prepubertal stress alters prefrontal gene expression associated with cell signalling and oligodendrocytes. Translational Psychiatry 12(1), article number: 516. (10.1038/s41398-022-02280-7)
- Clifton, N. et al. 2022. Developmental disruption to the cortical transcriptome and synaptosome in a model of SETD1A loss-of-function. Human Molecular Genetics 31(18), pp. 3095-3106. (10.1093/hmg/ddac105)
2021
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2021. Developmental profile of psychiatric risk associated with voltage-gated cation channel activity. Biological Psychiatry 90(6) (10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.03.009)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2021. Genetic association of FMRP targets with psychiatric disorders. Molecular Psychiatry 26, pp. 2977-2990. (10.1038/s41380-020-00912-2)
- Notter, T. et al. 2021. Neuronal activity increases translocator protein (TSPO) levels. Molecular Psychiatry 26, pp. 2025-2037. (10.1038/s41380-020-0745-1)
2020
- Clifton, N. E., Thomas, K. L., Wilkinson, L. S., Hall, J. and Trent, S. 2020. FMRP and CYFIP1 at the synapse and their role in psychiatric vulnerability. Complex Psychiatry (10.1159/000506858)
2019
- Clifton, N., Trent, S., Thomas, K. and Hall, J. 2019. Regulation and function of activity-dependent Homer in synaptic plasticity. Molecular Neuropsychiatry 5(3), pp. 147-161. (10.1159/000500267)
- Morgan, S. E. et al. 2019. Cortical patterning of abnormal morphometric similarity in psychosis is associated with brain expression of schizophrenia-related genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(19), pp. 9604-9609. (10.1073/pnas.1820754116)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2019. Dynamic expression of genes associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder across development. Translational Psychiatry 9, article number: 74. (10.1038/s41398-019-0405-x)
2018
- Sykes, L., Clifton, N., Hall, J. and Thomas, K. L. 2018. Regulation of the expression of the psychiatric risk gene Cacna1c during associative learning. Molecular Neuropsychiatry 4, pp. 149-157. (10.1159/000493917)
- Clifton, N., Thomas, K. and Hall, J. 2018. The effect of ketamine on the consolidation and extinction of contextual fear memory. Journal of Psychopharmacology 32(2), pp. 156-162. (10.1177/0269881117748903)
2017
- Clifton, N., Cameron, D., Trent, S., Sykes, L. H., Thomas, K. L. and Hall, J. 2017. Hippocampal regulation of postsynaptic density Homer1 by associative learning. Neural Plasticity 2017, article number: 5959182. (10.1155/2017/5959182)
- Clifton, N. E. et al. 2017. Schizophrenia copy number variants and associative learning. Molecular Psychiatry 22(2), pp. 178-182. (10.1038/mp.2016.227)
2016
- Clifton, N. 2016. The role of schizophrenia susceptibility genes in associative learning. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.
2012
- Clifton, N., Morisot, N., Girardon, S., Millan, M. J. and Loiseau, F. 2012. Enhancement of social novelty discrimination by positive allosteric modulators at metabotropic glutamate 5 receptors: adolescent administration prevents adult-onset deficits induced by neonatal treatment with phencyclidine. Psychopharmacology 225(3), pp. 579. (10.1007/s00213-012-2845-3)
