| Title: | On the genetic and environmental intersection of mental and physical health |
| Lead Institution: | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Principal investigator: | Dr Roseann Peterson |
Application 30782
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About
Psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorder are common and contribute substantially to global morbidity. Efforts to identify genetic variants influencing risk to mental illness remains a challenge. Genome-wide association studies have identified numerous risk variants for many disorders, but efforts are complicated by variation in the underlying causes and clinical presentation of psychiatric traits. There has been little systematic work on addressing this variation in a genetically-informed framework. Here, we propose leveraging sources of heterogeneity to increase power of genetic analyses and to clarify the etiology of comorbidity among psychiatric and related medical traits. This proposal specifically supports the UK Biobank's stated mission of "improved prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide-range of serious and life-threatening illnesses": our overarching goal is to integrate psychiatric and medical assessments with genetic data into comprehensive models of disease risk, in an effort to better understand the underlying causes of psychiatric illnesses and their co-occurrence with other medical conditions. The research we propose will add insight into the nature of individual differences (genetic and environmental) for psychiatric and comorbid medical conditions with downstream benefits including the potential for identifying underlying biological mechanisms, therapeutic targets, enhancing clinical practice and precision medicine through improved risk profiles, and providing new data for interventions.2 Publications
| Pub ID | Title | Author(s) | Year | Journal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10010 | Associations between polygenic liability to psychopathology and non-suicidal versus suicidal self-injury | Alexis C. Edwards (+4) | 2024 | American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B Neuropsychiatric Genetics |
| 11361 | Multifaceted risk for non-suicidal self-injury only versus suicide attempt in a population-based cohort of adults | Alexis C Edwards (+4) | 2023 | Journal of Affective Disorders |
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health