A novel analytical framework for dissecting the genetic architecture of behavioral symptoms in neuropsychiatric disorders.

ABSTRACT:

Background

For diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders, a categorical classification system is often utilized as a simple way for conceptualizing an often complex clinical picture. This approach provides an unsatisfactory model of mental illness, since in practice patients do not conform to these prototypical diagnostic categories. Family studies show notable familial co-aggregation between schizophrenia and bipolar illness and between schizoaffective disorders and both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, revealing that mental illness does not conform to such categorical models and is likely to follow a continuum encompassing a spectrum of behavioral symptoms.

Results and methodology

We introduce an analytic framework to dissect the phenotypic heterogeneity present in comple

SUBMITTER: Deo AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2838792 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature