Getting to the Root of Psychiatric Disorders

By Sathya Achia Abraham

With no significant treatment breakthroughs for schizophrenia in the past 50 years — and none for depression in the last 20 — researchers in the field are now rallying for a fresh new approach — getting to the root of these neuropsychiatric illnesses by delving into the core of the brain and unraveling the genetic, molecular and cellular causes of these conditions.

In a new article highlighted in the Policy Forum of the March 26 issue of Science, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Washington, the Broad Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the Baylor College of Medicine noted the lack of progress in the way of major treatment breakthroughs and knowledge of the underlying biology of these conditions. Among the team of prestigious authors are James D. Watson, Ph.D., who co-discovered DNA, and Eric Kandel, M.D., the 2000 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine.

The authors suggested that the integration of two approaches - genomics and circuit analysis – may provide some of the necessary answers to move the understanding of these mental illnesses forward. Through genomics researchers could discover the genetic basis of these disorders within subjects and families; while through circuit analysis, the structure, function and dysregulation of relevant neural circuits could be revealed.

“If ever funded, this initiative could have a very large impact on psychiatric genetics, providing us great power to detect rare genetic variants that may be making critical contributions to the risk of illness in our patients,” said Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., one of the paper’s co-authors and director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics.

Since the early 1980s, Kendler, who is a professor of human and molecular genetics in the VCU School of Medicine, has studied the genetics of psychiatric and substance use disorders including schizophrenia, major depression, alcoholism and smoking and nicotine dependence. His work on the molecular level focuses on identifying the location of the specific genes that influence vulnerability to schizophrenia, alcoholism and nicotine dependence.

The authors wrote, “As new genetic variants are discovered for psychiatric disorders, it will be possible to introduce these mutations into mouse models to simulate the human disorder, providing badly needed insights into the pathogenesis of these disorders.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: A copy of the article is available for reporters from the AAAS Office of Public Programs at scipak@aaas.org or by calling (202) 326-6440.