Faculty

Kenneth N Fish, PhD

Kenneth N Fish, PhD

Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Contact Details

3811 O'Hara St.
Pittsburgh
 
PA
 
15213
Email

Education & Training

PhD
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Oregon Health & Sciences University, School of Medicine
Cell Biology, Scripps Research Institute

Professional Affiliations

Member, Society for Neuroscience

Research Interests

Alterations in GABA circuitry in schizophrenia; Sex differences in circuit alterations; Normal development of primate circuitry
Selected Research Publications & Products
  1. Alterations in a Unique Class of Cortical Chandelier Cell Axon Cartridges in Schizophrenia.Rocco BR, DeDionisio AM, Lewis DA, Fish KN.Biol Psychiatry. 2017 Jul 1;82(1):40-48. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.09.018. Epub 2016 Sep 29.PMID: 27884423
  2. Pathological Basis for Deficient Excitatory Drive to Cortical Parvalbumin Interneurons in Schizophrenia.Chung DW, Fish KN, Lewis DA.Am J Psychiatry. 2016 Nov 1;173(11):1131-1139. Epub 2016 Jul 22.PMID: 27444795
  3. Markedly Lower Glutamic Acid Decarboxylase 67 Protein Levels in a Subset of Boutons in Schizophrenia.Rocco BR, Lewis DA, Fish KN.Biol Psychiatry. 2016 Jun 15;79(12):1006-15. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.07.022. Epub 2015 Aug 7.PMID: 26364548
  4. GABA-Synthesizing Enzymes in Calbindin and Calretinin Neurons in Monkey Prefrontal Cortex.Rocco BR, Sweet RA, Lewis DA, Fish KN.Cereb Cortex. 2016 May;26(5):2191-2204. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhv051. Epub 2015 Mar 30.PMID: 25824535
  5. Parvalbumin-containing chandelier and basket cell boutons have distinctive modes of maturation in monkey prefrontal cortex.Fish KN, Hoftman GD, Sheikh W, Kitchens M, Lewis DA.J Neurosci. 2013 May 8;33(19):8352-8. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0306-13.2013.PMID: 23658174

Education Interests

Medical student and resident education; Undergraduate research mentorship

JAMA Psychiatry: Diagnostic Specificity and Association with Cognition of Molecular Alterations in Prefrontal Somatostatin Neurons in Schizophrenia

Brain Image

Individuals with schizophrenia exhibit pronounced deficits in somatostatin messenger RNA levels in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other prefrontal regions. Lower somatostatin messenger RNA levels appear to be due to lower gene expression per neuron without a deficit in somatostatin-positive neuron density, suggesting that in schizophrenia, somatostatin neurons are functionally altered in the dorsolateral...

American Journal of Psychiatry: The Nature of Prefrontal Cortical GABA Neuron Alterations in Schizophrenia: Markedly Lower Somatostatin and Parvalbumin Gene Expression Without Missing Neurons

American Journal of Psychiatry

Alterations in markers of cortical gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling are among the most widely replicated findings in postmortem brain studies of schizophrenia. In the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, consistent findings of lower levels of gene products related to GABA neuron signaling indicates that inhibitory neurotransmission signaling is weaker in people with schizophrenia. However, clarity regarding...

Now in The Journal of Neuroscience: New Protective Marker in Dopamine Neurodegeneration in the Brain

New Protective Marker in Dopamine Neurodegeneration in the Brain

Parkinson's disease, a nervous system disorder that affects movement, is characterized by progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta in the midbrain. By contrast, the midbrain ventral tegmental area does not experience loss of dopaminergic neurons, though the explanation for the neurons’ resilience in this region has not been sufficiently studied. One possible explanation...

New Research in Biological Psychiatry & Cerebral Cortex

New Research in Biological Psychiatry & Cerebral Cortex 

Two recent studies from the Department of Psychiatry have enhanced our understanding of the role of cortical GABA neurons in health and disease. In Biological Psychiatry, Pitt Psychiatry investigators analyzed indices of parvalbumin-expressing basket cells axon terminals across regions of the visuospatial working memory network in schizophrenia. A paper published in Cerebral Cortex examines GABA neuron transcript...

Recent Study in Science Advances Reports Discovery of Ribosome-Associated Vesicles, a Novel Form of Endoplasmic Reticulum

Freyberg & Colleagues Science Advances 2020

Scientists representing an international consortium of labs—including postdoctoral associate Despoina Aslanoglou, PhD, Kenneth Fish, PhD, and the study’s senior author, Zach Freyberg, MD, PhD, from Pitt Psychiatry—has published a new study in Science Advances, reporting new insights into the organization of the endoplasmic reticulum. The endoplasmic reticulum is a membrane network within a cell that is important in...