Five 'mental disorders' may have genetic links

Conclusion This study suggests that autism, ADHD, clinical depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia may have common genetic risk factors. The five conditions examined in this study were selected on the basis of the availability of a large genetic data set. It is unclear at this stage whether other relatively common mental health conditions (such as anxiety disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder) are also affected by these genetic variations, or whether there is overlap with other conditions. Perhaps most importantly, these variations cannot on their own predict or explain the development of autism, ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The researchers point out that – as with almost all genome-wide association studies of complex conditions – the effect of the individual variations identified in these four regions was small, and cannot predict or diagnose these mental health conditions. However, the researchers report that evidence from a variety of research, "including that from clinical, epidemiological and molecular genetic studies, suggests that some genetic risk factors are shared between neuropsychiatric disorders." They suggest that this study adds to such evidence, and provides "insights into the shared causation of psychiatric disorders". These insights are, specifically, that changes in calcium signalling could be a fundamental biological mechanism "contributing to a broad vulnerability to psychopathology". ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Genetics/stem cells Mental health Source Type: news