Genetics shared among five Psychiatric Disorders

By Caribbean Medical News Staff

Researchers say five psychiatric disorders share the same genetic risk factors and that genetics may be part of the way to assist in treatment of psychiatric disorders. These disorders  include – bipolar disorder, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia.

Published in The Lancet, these findings emanate from the largest genetic study which analysed psychiatric illness according to Jordan Smoller from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Smoller explained that “This analysis provides the first genome-wide evidence that individual and aggregate molecular genetic risk factors are shared between five childhood-onset or adult-onset psychiatric disorders that are treated as distinct categories in clinical practice.”

According to the report, “two variations in genes play a role in the balance of calcium in brain cells and are a common factor in a few of these disorders. Thus, this should be a goal for any new treatments “, the study suggested.

According to reports, the researchers attempted to analyse the potential of “common genetic markers – or nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) – that could influence susceptibility to the five disorders”. Thus, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) reviewed the genome of 33,332 patients and 27,888 control subjects of European descent.

The study indicated that “four risk gene mutation positions that have significant and similar associations with all five diseases or disorders involve calcium in brain cells”.

“Significant progress has been made in understanding the genetic risk factors underlying psychiatric disorders. Our results provide new evidence that may inform a move beyond descriptive syndromes in psychiatry and towards classification based on underlying causes. These findings are particularly relevant in view of the imminent revision of classifications in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), “said Smoller.

The authors conclude that with these new findings, psychiatric diseases or disorders could possibly be predicted and prevented by genetic studies and further research.

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