Martin Schalling co-author in major international publication
Professor Martin Schalling from the MMK research group Neurogenetics is one of the co-authors of the study "Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain" that was published in Science June 21. The study focuses on how genetic variation relates to brain disorders.
Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder often run in families. In the study "Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain", researchers explored the genetic connections between these and other disorders of the brain. The results indicate that psychiatric disorders have important similarities at a molecular level, which current diagnostic categories don't reflect. MMK:s Martin Schalling is one of the co-authors of the study which is the broadest one yet within the field. Researchers from more that 600 institutions worldwide have collected and analyzed data from 265,218 patients and 784,643 controls, measuring the amount of genetic overlap across the disorders using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The researchers examined the genetic patterns across 25 psychiatric and neurological diseases, and the final results indicated widespread genetic overlap across different types of psychiatric disorders. This was noticed particularly between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia. The data also indicated strong overlap between anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as between OCD and Tourette syndrome.
Publication
Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain