Genomics of major mental illness

The major psychiatric disorders of adult life, schizophrenia (SZ), bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), contribute substantially to premature mortality and morbidity globally. Treatments are suboptimal, there is no diagnostic pathology or biomarkers, and pathophysiology is poorly understood. Novel therapeutic and diagnostic approaches are thus badly needed. Given the high heritability of psychiatric disorders, psychiatry has potentially much to gain from the application of genomics to identify molecular risk mechanisms and to improve diagnosis. Recent large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and sequencing studies, together with advances in functional genomics, have begun to illuminate the genetic architectures of psychiatric conditions and to identify potential biological mechanisms. Genomic findings also point to the aetiological relationships between different diagnoses and to the relationship between adult psychiatric disorders and childhood neurodevelopmental conditions.