Redefining phenotypes to advance psychiatric genetics: Implications from hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology.

ABSTRACT: Genetic discovery in psychiatry and clinical psychology is hindered by suboptimal phenotypic definitions. We argue that the hierarchical, dimensional, and data-driven classification system proposed by the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) consortium provides a more effective approach to identifying genes that underlie mental disorders, and to studying psychiatric etiology, than current diagnostic categories. Specifically, genes are expected to operate at different levels of the HiTOP hierarchy, with some highly pleiotropic genes influencing higher order psychopathology (e.g., the general factor), whereas other genes conferring more specific risk for individual spectra (e.g., internalizing), subfactors (e.g., fear disorders), or narrow symptoms (e.g., mood instability). We pr

SUBMITTER: Waszczuk MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6980897 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature