A collaboration launched today by Illumina and the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen plans to generate and analyze one of the largest sets of ancient human and pathogen genome panels ever created—with the goal of underpinning new approaches to developing treatments for mental and neurological conditions.…

An international research effort headed by scientists from the Danish iPSYCH initiative and the Broad Institute has identified the first common genetic risk factors for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The genome-wide association meta-analysis, involving more than 18,000 individuals with ASD and nearly 30,000 controls, also identified genetic variations between different…

The results of a genome-wide meta-analysis of genetic data from more than two million individuals has linked 102 genetic variants and 269 genes with depression, and found associations between the psychiatric disorder and a number of behavioral traits. The researchers, headed by a team at the University of Edinburgh, say…

A team that included scientists from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine reports the development of a research model that relates variations in DNA and gene activity to the risk of brain disorders. The model, described in a paper (“Comprehensive functional genomic resource and integrative model for…

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) published this week confirms what the psychiatric community has theorized for decades—that attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has a large genetic component. A collaborative, global research team has identified the first genetic variants that increase the risk of ADHD. Anita Thapar, Ph.D., professor in the division…

Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School have cataloged more than 70,000 active novel elements in dopaminergic neurons using a new technique known as laser-capture RNA seq—which involves cutting out dopamine neurons from a human brain section with a laser. Dopamine neurons are located within the…

Techniques such as high-throughput genome sequencing have allowed scientists to identify hundreds of genetic variants that are linked with increased risk of different neurodevelopmental or neuropsychological disorders, such epilepsy, schizophrenia, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, two people with the same known risk variant won’t necessarily present with…

Circadian rhythms are regular, daily variations in some of our biological functions and behaviors that are key to health and mental wellbeing. A research team at the University of Glasgow has now identified a potential genetic link between disrupted circadian rhythms and mood disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD) and…

Scientists in the U.S. and Korea have developed a statistical method for estimating the broad numbers of DNA variations that impact on different physical traits, such as height or childhood IQ, and on a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to bipolar disorder. Their findings, derived from analyses of existing…

Researchers say genes located in a large chromosomal aberration associated with autism interact with each other to modulate the variable symptoms of the disease. A Penn State–led team tested the role of these genes individually and in tandem by reducing the amount of the genes expressed in a fruit fly…

Clinical categories for psychiatric disorders may need to be rethought, suggests a new study from the aptly named Brainstorm Consortium, a collaborative effort that accepted input from researchers representing 600 institutions worldwide. By pooling their data on hundreds of thousands of genomes, these researchers found genetic connections among distinct psychiatric…

Forty-four genetic variants, 30 of them newly-discovered, are risk factors for major depression, a global research consortium has concluded in a new study that essentially maps out the genetic basis of the mental health disorder. The Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium revealed its findings in…

A study by scientists in the U.K., France, and the U.S. suggests that the degree of empathy we feel toward our fellow man is at least partly down to our genes. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, U.K., found that about 10% of…

Researchers at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) have revealed an unparalleled number of SNPs associated with lifespan (16), including 14 previously unknown variants. The results of the SIB research, which used an innovative computational approach to analyze a dataset of over 116,000 individuals and probe 2.3 million human single-nucleotide…

A new study from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium provides the first molecular evidence that genetic influences play a role in the risk of getting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after traumatic experiences. The report extends previous findings that showed that there is some shared genetic overlap between PTSD and other mental…