Where Does Mental Disorders Begin?

Psychiatric disorders’ many complexities have stymied scientists looking for clear genetic culprits. But a new giant dataset holds clues to how, when and where these brain disorders begin.

Called PsychENCODE, the project’s first large data release has revealed intricaIt’s all connected, and now we have the tools to unravel those connections,” says geneticist Thomas Lehner of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., who oversaw the project but wasn’t involved in the research. 

Earlier studies have pinpointed certain genes and other stretches of the genome — the genetic material that makes up cells’ instruction books — as being involved in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism spectrum disorder. The new collection of work goes further, both confirming and clarifying some of these roles.the insights into the behavior of genes and the stretches of genetic material between them in both healthy brains and those from people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or autism spectrum disorder.