A new method to identify the biological basis of neuropsychiatric disorders
For many years, scientists could only speculate that neuropsychiatric disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, addiction, or schizophrenia were related to our genetics. A 2009 study showed that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients had hundreds of common genetic variants that each increased the risk of disease by a small amount. Over the past decade, these findings greatly influenced scientists as they performed similar whole genome studies on individuals with and without neuropsychiatric disorders, searching for significant common genetic variants. But what do the these variants tell us about the biological basis of these disorders? The answer is far from straightforward.
Now, researchers at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, have developed a new method of examining the mechanisms associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. And it all starts with gene networks. Their findings were published recently in the journal EBioMedicine.
Read the article in Med e-News here.