Genetic Knowledge of Mental Illness Growing by Leaps and Bounds
 The long era of nonreproducible findings in the genetics of mental illness is over—or should be, said Matthew State, M.D., Ph.D., a professor and chair of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, at APA’s2014 annual meeting.
Advances in technology that permit high-throughput at sharply lower cost, large sample sizes, and a shift from a candidate-gene approach to genomewide association studies have led that change over the last decade, he said. “The molecular clues provided by genetics are offering novel insights into pathophysiology.”
Study of copy-number variations in autism, for instance, have led to identification of 10 genes, most involved in chromatin modification and the regulation of gene expression. The results have also shown significant overlaps in de novo gene mutations among several diagnostic categories, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, major depression, and bipolar disorder. “The same variation can lead to classic autism in one person or classic schizophrenia in another,” said State. “This is exploding our notion that genes equal diagnosis. But it’s still a long way from identifying a bit of the region to explaining human behavior.”
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