NPAS3 and psychiatric disorder: Although sn-astro-M1 did not enrich for markers of either neurotoxic or neuroprotective astrocytes, its hub gene Npas3 (Fig. 3b) is a transcription factor belonging to the bHLH-PAS superfamily known to be involved in FGF signaling, hypoxia, circadian rhythm, and metabolic pathways and has been proposed as a link between mental illness and metabolic disorders32.