Systems biology in molecular psychiatry

The last ten to fifteen years have seen a remarkable shift of research strategies from hypothesis-driven, reductionistic to data driven, hypothesis-free approaches. This tendency has become evident after completion of the sequencing of the human genome, when publications under the label systems biology have been skyrocketing. This shift marks a gradual revision of scientific understanding of biological systems. Whilst the former has been component-oriented, precluding elements that do not belong to the hypothesis, the latter try to extract information from the whole system in the first place. Only with this information at hand, data driven strategies develop hypotheses. Data driven strategies unearth the immense complexity of biological systems and, hence, necessitate computer-aided support. Mathematical tools derived from chaos theory appear to be applicable in biological systems, but require significant improvements. The combination of high throughput data collection with in silico modelling of molecular or higher order systems can markedly extend our understanding of onset and progression of diseases. Undoubtedly, systems thinking in brain research is the greatest challenge for the years to come.