Genetic threads link psychiatric disorders

Half of people with one psychiatric disorder will be diagnosed with a second. About 40% will have four or more. New research helps explain why.

“This work provides the best evidence yet that there may be things that we are currently giving different names to that are actually driven by the same biological processes,” said Principal Investigator Andrew Grotzinger, an Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG) and psychology and neuroscience assistant professor.

In the most comprehensive study to date, researchers analyzed DNA from 1 million people with at least one of 14 psychiatric disorders, revealing that many of these conditions fall into a smaller number of genetically related clusters.

“By identifying what is shared across these disorders, we can hopefully come up with ways to target them in a different way that doesn’t require four separate pills or four separate psychotherapy interventions.” said Grotzinger.