Midsummer Nights' Science: Progress in psychiatric genetics

To find genes that underlie traits or diseases, scientists often conduct genome-wide association studies (GWAS). GWAS scan the entire genome for common variants to highlight areas likely to harbor influential genes. While researchers long debated whether this was a useful approach to studying psychiatric disease, recent GWAS have revealed vital information about genetic variations that may be associated with these disorders.

In this second installment of the Broad Institute's 2014 Midsummer Nights' Science lecture series, Benjamin Neale described what he and his colleagues have learned from their genome-wide association and next generation sequencing efforts, with a particular focus on schizophrenia and autism.