Mr Alexander Richards

Research Associate, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences

School of Medicine

: RichardsAL1@cardiff.ac.uk
: +44 29206 88422
: Hadyn Ellis Building, Room 2.30, Maindy Road, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ

Overview
Publications

I'm a Research Associate working on common variation in schizophrenia. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between polygenic risk scores and cognitive or symptom variables.

Date
Type

2024

D'Andrea, G. et al. 2024. Variation of subclinical psychosis across 16 sites in Europe and Brazil: findings from the multi-national EU-GEI study. Psychological Medicine (10.1017/S0033291723003781)

2023

Rodriguez, V. et al. 2023. Use of multiple polygenic risk scores for distinguishing schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and affective psychosis categories in a first-episode sample; the EU-GEI study. Psychological Medicine 53(8), pp. 3396-3405. (10.1017/S0033291721005456)
Fusar-Poli, L. et al. 2023. Examining the association between exposome score for schizophrenia and cognition in schizophrenia, siblings, and healthy controls: Results from the EUGEI study. Psychiatry Research 323, article number: 115184. (10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115184)
Ferraro, L. et al. 2023. First-episode psychosis patients who deteriorated in the premorbid period do not have higher polygenic risk scores than others: A cluster analysis of EU-GEI data. Schizophrenia Bulletin: The Journal of Psychoses and Related Disorders 49(1), pp. 218-227. (10.1093/schbul/sbac100)

2022

Tripoli, G. et al. 2022. Facial emotion recognition in psychosis and associations with polygenic risk for schizophrenia: findings from the multi-center EU-GEI case-control study. Schizophrenia Bulletin 48(5), pp. 1104-114. (10.1093/schbul/sbac022)
Richards, A. et al. 2022. Genetic liabilities differentiating bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression and phenotypic heterogeneity in bipolar disorder. JAMA Psychiatry 79(10), pp. 1032-1039. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.2594)
Paquin, V. et al. 2022. Age- and sex-specific associations between risk scores for schizophrenia and self-reported health in the general population. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (10.1007/s00127-022-02346-3)
van Os, J. et al. 2022. Evidence, and replication thereof, that molecular-genetic and environmental risks for psychosis impact through an affective pathway. Psychological Medicine 52(10), pp. 1910-1922. (10.1017/S0033291720003748)
Henquet, C. et al. 2022. A replication study of JTC bias, genetic liability for psychosis and delusional ideation. Psychological Medicine 52(9), pp. 1777-1783. (10.1017/S0033291720003578)
Trubetskoy, V. et al. 2022. Mapping genomic loci prioritises genes and implicates synaptic biology in schizophrenia. Nature 604, pp. 502-508. (10.1038/s41586-022-04434-5)
Fusar-Poli, L. et al. 2022. Examining facial emotion recognition as an intermediate phenotype for psychosis: findings from the EUGEI study. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 113, article number: 110440. (10.1016/j.pnpbp.2021.110440)

2021

Tosato, S. et al. 2021. Obstetric complications and polygenic risk score: which role in predicting a severe short-term outcome in psychosis?. Genes 12(12), article number: 1895. (10.3390/genes12121895)
Ajnakina, O. et al. 2021. Duration of untreated psychosis in first-episode psychosis is not associated with common genetic variants for major psychiatric conditions: results from the multi-center EU-GEI study. Schizophrenia Bulletin 47(6), pp. 1653-1662. (10.1093/schbul/sbab055)
Quattrone, D. et al. 2021. The continuity of effect of schizophrenia polygenic risk score and patterns of cannabis use on transdiagnostic symptom dimensions at first-episode psychosis: findings from the EU-GEI study. Translational Psychiatry 11(1), article number: 423. (10.1038/s41398-021-01526-0)
Legge, S. et al. 2021. Associations between schizophrenia polygenic liability, symptom dimensions, and cognitive ability in schizophrenia. JAMA Psychiatry 78(10), pp. 1143-1151. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.1961)
Hubbard, L. et al. 2021. Rare copy number variations are associated with poorer cognition in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry 90(1), pp. 28-34. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.11.025)
Tripoli, G. et al. 2021. Jumping to conclusions, general intelligence, and psychosis liability: findings from the multi-centre EU-GEI case-control study. Psychological Medicine 51(4), pp. 623-633. (10.1017/S003329171900357X)
Erzin, G. et al. 2021. Examining the association between exposome score for schizophrenia and functioning in schizophrenia, siblings, and healthy controls: Results from the EUGEI study. European Psychiatry 64(1), article number: e25. (10.1192/j.eurpsy.2021.19)
Hannon, E. et al. 2021. DNA methylation meta-analysis reveals cellular alterations in psychosis and markers of treatment-resistant schizophrenia. eLife 10, article number: e58430. (10.7554/eLife.58430)
Hasmi, L. et al. 2021. What makes the psychosis 'clinical high risk' state risky: psychosis itself or the co-presence of a non-psychotic disorder?. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences 30, article number: e53. (10.1017/S204579602100041X)

2020

Pries, L. et al. 2020. Association of recent stressful life events with mental and physical health in the context of genomic and exposomic liability for schizophrenia. JAMA Psychiatry 77(12), pp. 1296-1304. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.2304)
Pries, L. et al. 2020. Examining the independent and joint effects of genomic and exposomic liabilities for schizophrenia across the psychosis spectrum. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences 29, article number: e182. (10.1017/S2045796020000943)
van Os, J. et al. 2020. Replicated evidence that endophenotypic expression of schizophrenia polygenic risk is greater in healthy siblings of patients compared to controls, suggesting gene-environment interaction. The EUGEI study. Psychological Medicine 50(11), pp. 1884-1897. (10.1017/S003329171900196X)
Riglin, L. et al. 2020. Using genetics to examine a general liability to childhood psychopathology. Behavior Genetics 50, pp. 213-220. (10.1007/s10519-019-09985-4)
Akingbuwa, W. A. et al. 2020. Genetic associations between childhood psychopathology and adult depression and associated traits in 42 998 individuals. JAMA Psychiatry 77(7), pp. 715-728. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.0527)
Ferraro, L. et al. 2020. Premorbid adjustment and IQ in patients with first-episode psychosis: a multisite case-control study of their relationship with cannabis use. Schizophrenia Bulletin 46(3), pp. 517-529. (10.1093/schbul/sbz077)
Richards, A. et al. 2020. The relationship between polygenic risk scores and cognition in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin 46(2), pp. -. (10.1093/schbul/sbz061)
Lewis, K. J. et al. 2020. Comparison of genetic liability for sleep traits among individuals with Bipolar Disorder I or II and control participants. JAMA Psychiatry 77(3), pp. 303-310. (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.4079)
Rees, E. et al. 2020. De novo mutations identified by exome sequencing implicate rare missense variants in SLC6A1 in schizophrenia. Nature Neuroscience 23(2), pp. 179-184. (10.1038/s41593-019-0565-2)

2019

Pries, L. et al. 2019. Estimating exposome score for schizophrenia using predictive modeling approach in two independent samples: the results from the EUGEI study. Schizophrenia Bulletin 45(5), pp. 960-965. (10.1093/schbul/sbz054)
Quattrone, D. et al. 2019. Transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology at first episode psychosis: findings from the multinational EU GEI study. Psychological Medicine 49(8), pp. 1378-1391. (10.1017/S0033291718002131)
Guloksuz, S. et al. 2019. Examining the independent and joint effects of molecular genetic liability and environmental exposures in schizophrenia: results from the EUGEI study. World Psychiatry 18(2), pp. 173-182. (10.1002/wps.20629)
Stahl, E. A. et al. 2019. Genome-wide association study identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder. Nature Genetics 51, pp. 793-803. (10.1038/s41588-019-0397-8)
Rees, E. et al. 2019. Targeted sequencing of 10,198 samples confirms abnormalities in neuronal activity and implicates voltage-gated sodium channels in schizophrenia pathogenesis. Biological Psychiatry 85(7), pp. 554-562. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.08.022)
Harold, D. et al. 2019. Population-based identity-by-descent mapping combined with exome sequencing to detect rare risk variants for schizophrenia. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 180(3), pp. 223-231. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32716)
Richards, A. et al. 2019. Associations between schizophrenia genetic risk, anxiety disorders and manic/hypomanic episode in a New Zealand longitudinal population cohort study. British Journal of Psychiatry 214(2), pp. 96-102. (10.1192/bjp.2018.227)

2018

Riglin, L. et al. 2018. The impact of schizophrenia and mood disorder risk alleles on emotional problems: investigating change from childhood to middle age. Psychological Medicine 48(13), pp. 2153-2158. (10.1017/S0033291717003634)
Donohoe, G. et al. 2018. Genetically predicted complement component 4A expression: effects on memory function and middle temporal lobe activation. Psychological Medicine 48(10), pp. 1608-1615. (10.1017/S0033291717002987)
Ruderfer, D. M. et al. 2018. Genomic dissection of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, including 28 subphenotypes. Cell 173(7), pp. 1705-1715.e16. (10.1016/j.cell.2018.05.046)
Cosgrove, D. et al. 2018. Effects of MiR-137 genetic risk score on brain volume and cortical measures in patients with schizophrenia and controls. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 177(3), pp. 369-376. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32620)

2017

Green, E. K. et al. 2017. Genome-wide significant locus for Research Diagnostic Criteria Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar type. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 174(8), pp. 767-771. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32572)
Cosgrove, D. et al. 2017. Cognitive characterization of schizophrenia risk variants involved in synaptic transmission: evidence of CACNA1C's role in working memory. Neuropsychopharmacology 42, pp. 2612-2622. (10.1038/npp.2017.123)
Leonenko, G. et al. 2017. Mutation intolerant genes and targets of FMRP are enriched for nonsynonymous alleles in schizophrenia. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 174(7), pp. 724-731. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32560)
Legge, S. E. et al. 2017. Genome-wide common and rare variant analysis provides novel insights into clozapine-associated neutropenia. Molecular Psychiatry 22, pp. 1502-1508. (10.1038/mp.2016.97)
Mihaljevic, M. et al. 2017. The emerging role of the FKBP5 gene polymorphisms in vulnerability-stress model of schizophrenia: further evidence from a Serbian population. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 267(6), pp. 527-539. (10.1007/s00406-016-0720-7)
Riglin, L., Collishaw, S., Richards, A., Thapar, A., Maughan, B., O'Donovan, M. C. and Thapar, A. 2017. Schizophrenia polygenic risk score and psychotic risk detection - authors' reply. The Lancet Psychiatry 4(3), pp. 188-189. (10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30052-4)
Marshall, C. R. et al. 2017. Contribution of copy number variants to schizophrenia from a genome-wide study of 41,321 subjects. Nature Genetics 49, pp. 27-35. (10.1038/ng.3725)
Cosgrove, D. et al. 2017. MiR-137-derived polygenic risk: effects on cognitive performance in patients with schizophrenia and controls. Translational Psychiatry 7(1), pp. e1012. (10.1038/tp.2016.286)
Riglin, L., Collishaw, S., Richards, A., Thapar, A. K., Maughan, B., O'Donovan, M. C. and Thapar, A. 2017. Schizophrenia risk alleles and neurodevelopmental outcomes in childhood: a population-based cohort study. Lancet Psychiatry 4(1), pp. 57-62. (10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30406-0)

2016

Whitton, L. et al. 2016. Cognitive analysis of schizophrenia risk genes that function as epigenetic regulators of gene expression. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 171(8), pp. 1170-1179. (10.1002/ajmg.b.32503)
Franke, B. et al. 2016. Genetic influences on schizophrenia and subcortical brain volumes: large-scale proof of concept. Nature Neuroscience 19(3), pp. 420-431. (10.1038/nn.4228)
Richards, A. et al. 2016. Exome arrays capture polygenic rare variant contributions to schizophrenia. Human Molecular Genetics 25(5), pp. 1001-1007. (10.1093/hmg/ddv620)

2015

Loohuis, L. M. O. et al. 2015. Genome-wide burden of deleterious coding variants increased in schizophrenia. Nature Communications 6, article number: 7501. (10.1038/ncomms8501)
Jones, L. et al. 2015. Convergent genetic and expression data implicate immunity in Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's and Dementia 11(6), pp. 658-671. (10.1016/j.jalz.2014.05.1757)
Rees, E. et al. 2015. Analysis of exome sequence in 604 trios for recessive genotypes in schizophrenia. Translational Psychiatry 5(7), article number: e607. (10.1038/tp.2015.99)

2014

Gusev, A. et al. 2014. Partitioning heritability of regulatory and cell-type-specific variants across 11 common diseases. American Journal of Human Genetics 95(5), pp. 535-552. (10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.10.004)
Ripke, S. et al. 2014. Biological insights from 108 schizophrenia-associated genetic loci. Nature 511(7510), pp. 421-427. (10.1038/nature13595)
Craddock, N. J. et al. 2014. Identifying gene-environment interactions in schizophrenia: contemporary challenges for integrated, large-scale investigations. Schizophrenia Bulletin 40(4), pp. 729-736. (10.1093/schbul/sbu069)
Escott-Price, V. et al. 2014. Gene-wide analysis detects two new susceptibility genes for Alzheimer's Disease. PLoS ONE 9(6), article number: e94661. (10.1371/journal.pone.0094661)
Rees, E. et al. 2014. CNV analysis in a large schizophrenia sample implicates deletions at 16p12.1 and SLC1A1 and duplications at 1p36.33 and CGNL1. Human Molecular Genetics 23(6), pp. 1669-1676. (10.1093/hmg/ddt540)
Rees, E. et al. 2014. Analysis of copy number variations at 15 schizophrenia-associated loci. British Journal of Psychiatry 204(2), pp. 108-114. (10.1192/bjp.bp.113.131052)

2013

Rees, E. et al. 2013. Evidence that duplications of 22q11.2 protect against schizophrenia. Molecular Psychiatry n/a (10.1038/mp.2013.156)
Zammit, S. et al. 2013. A population-based study of genetic variation and psychotic experiences in adolescents. Schizophrenia Bulletin 40(6), pp. 1254-1262. (10.1093/schbul/sbt146)
Ripke, S. et al. 2013. Genome-wide association analysis identifies 13 new risk loci for schizophrenia. Nature Genetics 45(10), pp. 1150-1159. (10.1038/ng.2742)
Hamshere, M. L. et al. 2013. Genome-wide significant associations in schizophrenia to ITIH3/4, CACNA1C and SDCCAG8, and extensive replication of associations reported by the Schizophrenia PGC. Molecular Psychiatry 18(6), pp. 708-712. (10.1038/mp.2012.67)
Kirov, G. et al. 2013. The penetrance of copy number variations for schizophrenia and developmental delay. Biological Psychiatry 75(5), pp. 378-385. (10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.07.022)

2012

Richards, A. et al. 2012. Schizophrenia susceptibility alleles are enriched for alleles that affect gene expression in adult human brain. Molecular Psychiatry 17(2), pp. 193-201. (10.1038/mp.2011.11)
Gerrish, A. et al. 2012. The role of variation at AβPP, PSEN1, PSEN2, and MAPT in late onset Alzheimer's Disease. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease 28(2), pp. 377-387. (10.3233/JAD-2011-110824)

2011

Hollingworth, P. et al. 2011. Common variants at ABCA7, MS4A6A/MS4A4E, EPHA1, CD33 and CD2AP are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Nature Genetics 43(5), pp. 429-435. (10.1038/ng.803)
Smith, R. L. et al. 2011. Analysis of neurogranin (NRGN) in schizophrenia. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 156B(5), pp. 532-535. (10.1002/ajmg.b.31191)

2010

Richards, A. 2010. Gene expression data and neuropsychiatric disease. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

2008

Bray, N. J. et al. 2008. Cis- and trans- loci influence expression of the schizophrenia susceptibility gene DTNBP1. Human Molecular Genetics 17(8), pp. 1169-1174. (10.1093/hmg/ddn006)
Richards, A. L., Holmans, P. A., O'Donovan, M. C., Owen, M. J. and Jones, L. 2008. A comparison of four clustering methods for brain expression microarray data. BMC Bioinformatics 9, article number: 490. (10.1186/1471-2105-9-490)