Researcher

Title

• Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Université de Montréal (2024)
• Researcher, Centre de recherche Azrieli du CHU Sainte-Justine (2024)

• MD, Purkyne (now Masaryk) University, Czech Repulic, 1986
• 1986-1990: Resident, Internal Medicine, Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
• 1990-1995: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Genetics of Calcium-related Metabolic Disorders, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Mentor: Dr. G.N. Hendy
• 1996: Certificate of the United States Medical Licencing Examination by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates
• 1996-1998: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Genetics of Essential Hypertension, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.  Mentor: Dr. P. Hamet

The research in my laboratory is focused on investigating the role of vascular risk factors in brain health across the life span.

I co-direct the Saguenay Youth Study (SYS), which is a longitudinal study of 2,000 adolescents and their parents, aimed at investigating the etiology and pathobiology of cardiometabolic and brain disease across the life span. The study combines multi-omics with deep phenotyping of the body and brain, including magnetic resonance imaging and an hour-long cardiovascular protocol with beat-by-beat recording of blood pressure and hemodynamic factors. To date, we have published >60 original papers based primarily on the SYS multi-domain dataset in highly regarded journals, including those by my team in Circulation, JAMA Psychiatry, and JAMA Pediatrics (impact factor >25).

I have also contributed my expertise and SYS data to several projects carried out through collaborative efforts led by international consortia, namely CHARGE, BRIDGET and ENIGMA, resulting in several high-impact publications (e.g., Science, Nature, Nat Genet). Recently, I led two CHARGE projects related to white-matter hyperintensities, a neuroimaging marker of cerebral small vessel disease: one was on the metabolomic profiling of white-matter hyperintensities in >9,000 individuals (Circulation 2022; PMID: 35050683), and the other one was on the role of white-matter hyperintensities in cortical atrophy and dementia in >550,000 individuals (Nat Commun 2024, PMID: 39496600). 

• Multi-omics approaches (genetics, epigenetics, transcriptomics and metabolomics) combined with deep phenotyping (e.g., neuroimaging) in large-scale, population-based cohorts.
• Clinical research
• Preclinical studies in animal models (multimodal magnetic resonance imaging, serial 2-photon tomography, and single-cell RNA sequencing).

Career Summary

Awards and Distinctions

• Award for Excellence in Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (2005)
• Elected Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA, 2012)

Presentations

1. Obesity, blood lipids and the adolescent brain (Paula Rantakallio Symposium, Oulu, Finland; June 2022)
2. Metabolism and brain health: from large populations to experimental models and back (Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, Nov 2023)
3. Vascular and metabolic risk factors of cortical atrophy: cells and molecules (Barcelonaβeta: Alzheimer's Research Center, Barcelona, Spain, May 2024)
4. Obesity and brain health in youth: from populations to experimental models and back (SickKids Translational Medicine Symposium in Memory of Sanita Jandu, Toronto, Canada, June 2024)
5. Population neuroscience of the developing and aging brain (Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France, Sept 2024).

Publications

1. Patel Y, Shin J, et al. Genetic risk factors underlying white matter hyperintensities and cortical atrophy. Nat Commun, 2024;15:9517.
2. Patel Y, Woo A et al. Obesity and the cerebral cortex: Underlying neurobiology in mice and humans. Brain Behav Immun. 2024; 119:637-647.
3. Shin J, Patel Y, Parker N, Paus T, Pausova Z. Prediabetic HbA1c and Cortical Atrophy: Underlying Neurobiology. Diabetes Care. 2023; 46:2267-2272.
4. Sliz E et al. Circulating metabolome and white matter hyperintensities in women and men. Circulation 2022 Apr 5; 145(14):1040-1052.
5. Sliz E et al. A variant near DHCR24 associates with microstructural properties of white matter and peripheral lipid metabolism in adolescents. Mol Psychiatry. 2021; 26:3795-3805.
6. Syme C et al. Visceral fat-related systemic inflammation and the adolescent brain: a mediating role of circulating glycerophosphocholines. Int J Obesity. 2019; 43:1223-1230.
7. Lee KWK et al. Prenatal exposure to maternal cigarette smoking and DNA methylation: epigenome-wide association in a discovery sample of adolescents and replication in an independent cohort at birth through 17 years of age. Environ Health Perspect. 2015; 123: 193-9.
8. Lee KWK et al. Prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke interacts with OPRM1 to modulate dietary intake of fat. J Psychiatry Neurosci, 2015; 40: 38-45.
9. Haghighi A et al. Opioid receptor mu 1 gene, fat intake and obesity in adolescence. Mol Psychiatry. 2014; 19: 63-8.
10. Haghighi A et al. Prenatal exposure to maternal cigarette smoking, amygdala volume and fat preference in adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry. 2013; 70: 98-105.