A psychiatric research study just published in "The Lancet" focuses
on the common genetic basis for five psychiatric disorders. A
popular media account is provided by Medscape though this news
is rapidly being disseminated through many outlets. Quoting
from the Medscape article:
|Investigators from the Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric
|Genomics Consortium have found that autism spectrum disorder
|(ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar
|disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and schizophrenia
|share common genetic risk factors.
|
|Specifically, the results of the genome-wide association study
|(GWAS) reveal single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in
|2 genes - CACNA1C and CACNB2 - both of which
|are involved in the balance of calcium in brain cells, are
|implicated in several of these disorders, and could provide
|a potential target for new treatments.
|
|"This analysis provides the first genome-wide evidence that
|individual and aggregate molecular genetic risk factors are
|shared between 5 childhood-onset or adult-onset psychiatric
|disorders that are treated as distinct categories in clinical
|practice," study investigator Jordan Smoller, MD, Massachusetts
|General Hospital, Boston, said in a release.
And:
|The investigators add that the study results "implicate a specific
|biological pathway - voltage-gated calcium-channel signalling -
|as a contributor to the pathogenesis of several psychiatric disorders,
|and support the potential of this pathway as a therapeutic target
|for psychiatric disease."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/779979
So, is replicated and supported, these results may change how
we think that these disorders develop -- though I imagine that
a diathesis-stress model might be needed to explain certain
specific disorders -- and suggest new treatments that may have
little to do with the medications that we use today. One wonders
whether psychotherapy will also be altered as a result.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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