The benefits of microarrays as tools for studying neuropsychiatric disorders

DNA microarray technology is currently an area of great interest. These microarray or "gene chip" technologies, which arose out of the development of large-scale sequencing approaches, are now coming increasingly into use, generating a far greater volume of data than the data representing the sequences themselves. This technology is a powerful tool for the analysis of the organization and regulation of the brain in both diseased and healthy subjects. It can provide new insights into gene function, disease pathophysiology, disease classification and drug development. In this review, the basic theory of microarray technology and its analysis methods are presented, and technical problems are discussed. Additionally, some current results from microarray technology conducted in neuropsychiatry are presented.