From age correction to genome-wide association.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatric Genetics
• Human Genetics
• Molecular Psychiatry

Background:

• Pioneering work by Eric Strömgren laid the foundation for psychiatric genetics and family studies.
• Recent technological advancements have fueled an explosion of interest and progress in psychiatric genetics research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the current progress in psychiatric genetics research.
• To provide an overview of linkage and association studies, whole genome genotyping, copy number variants, and epigenetics in psychiatric disorders.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of relevant studies in psychiatric genetics.
• Discussion of complementary approaches like linkage and association studies.
• Examination of recent technological advancements in genetic research.

Main Results:

• Linkage and association studies are complementary methods for locating genes involved in the genetic etiology of psychopathology.
• Linkage analysis detects genes over large distances but struggles with small effect sizes; association studies detect small effects over short distances.
• Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become feasible, identifying novel susceptibility loci.

Conclusions:

• Technological advancements have enabled genome-wide association studies (GWAS), leading to the identification of novel susceptibility loci.
• Recent discoveries include epigenetic phenomena and copy number variants as important factors in psychiatric disorders.